What really happened

In January 1852, a close friend of Gogol, Ekaterina Mikhailovna Khomyakova, died in Moscow. This death, caused by a serious illness, struck the writer so much that when he came to the memorial 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 a severe depression, began to spend sleepless nights praying, refused food and, without saying a word, spent days only lying on his bed, not even bothering to take off his boots.

Modern researchers tend 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 in the alternation of two opposite phases of mood. Manic periods are accompanied by a very high spirits and irrepressible energy. But with the onset of the depressive phase, Gogol hit the opposite extreme - he lost motivation to do anything, suffered from thoughts that tormented him, up to the complete disappearance of his appetite.

In the middle of the 19th century, this disease had not yet been described by anyone, so the doctors of that time did not connect the writer’s behavior with a mental disorder in any way, preferring to look for the cause in physical ailment. As a result, when by February Gogol's condition became extremely serious, the assembled council of the best doctors in Moscow treated him for anything, but not from 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. They let the writer bleed from his nose, put leeches on his face and doused him with cold water, although Gogol himself resisted the procedures as best he could. But by common efforts, holding his arms and legs, the doctors continued to treat him for a non-existent ailment.

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

What was said after

In 1839, while in Italy, Gogol fell ill with encephalitis, after which he began to experience prolonged fainting, turning into a lethargic sleep. Being in this state, Gogol could practically not show signs of life visible to an ordinary person - his pulse and breathing were barely noticeable, and there was no way to wake the sleeping person. 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 plunged into a lethargic sleep were mistakenly recognized as dead and buried. Such a prospect frightened the writer so much that for 10 years he could not force 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 requested that he not be buried until there were obvious signs of decomposition of the body. This will of the writer was never fulfilled - it was precisely because of this fact that stories became popular that Gogol was nevertheless buried alive.

This version began to be widely discussed only in the second half of the 20th century and is associated with the fact of the writer's reburial in 1931. Then the Soviet authorities wished to remake the Danilovsky Monastery, where the grave of the writer 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 opening the coffin, everyone saw how Gogol's head lay 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 being buried alive. But modern researchers do not take this version too seriously. And there are several strong arguments for that.

Firstly, the same Lidin told some acquaintances a completely different version - supposedly Gogol's skull was not in the coffin at all, since the famous Moscow collector Alexei Bakhrushin dug it up before. This rumor also became very popular, although those who could confirm it were never found.

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 coffin lid eventually falls and begins to put pressure on the head, since it is located above the rest of the body. A change in the position of the head of the deceased, found after the exhumation of graves, is 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. They really were one of the best doctors in the 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 it.
In addition, the next morning after his death, the death mask was removed from Gogol's face. This procedure is accompanied by the application of a 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 the rational arguments, you can be sure that rumors about the mysterious death of a genius will not disappear anywhere. And it's not just the need of society 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.

There were many circumstances in Gogol's life that are still difficult and even impossible to explain. He led a strange way of life, wrote strange, but brilliant works. He could not be called a healthy person, but doctors could not classify his illness.

Gogol was ... a clairvoyant! Hence his striking phrase in a letter to Zhukovsky about a completely new country - the USA: “What is United States? CARRION. The man in them has weathered to the point that it’s not worth a damned egg. ”

Realizing that there was a lot of "dead meat" around and in his "native fatherland", Gogol thought, and for WHOM did he write the continuation of "Dead Souls" on January 1 (O.S.), 1852?

“The abyss of the fall of human souls” covered by Gogol in the Nikolaev Russian Empire inevitably led to the idea that almost the entire population of the country was going “directly” to ... Hell.

And the damned question for the thinking writer arose: "What to do?"

Even after death, his body did not find rest (the skull mysteriously disappeared from the grave) ...

From childhood, Gogol was not distinguished by good health and diligence, he was "unusually thin and weak", with a long face and a large nose. The leadership of the lyceum in 1824 repeatedly punished him for "untidiness, buffoonery, stubbornness and disobedience."

Gogol himself recognized the paradoxical nature of his character and believed that it contained "a terrible mixture of contradictions, stubbornness, impudent arrogance and the most humiliated humility."

As for health, his illnesses were also strange. Gogol had a special view of his body and believed that it was arranged in a completely different way than other people. He believed that his stomach was turned upside down and constantly complained of pain. He constantly talked about the stomach, believing that this topic is of interest to everyone. As Princess V.N. Repina: "We constantly lived in his stomach" ...

His next "misfortune" was strange seizures: he fell into a somnambulistic state, when his pulse almost subsided, but all this was accompanied by excitement, fears, numbness. Gogol was very afraid that he would be buried alive when he was considered dead. After another attack, he wrote a will in which he demanded "not to bury the body until the first signs of decomposition."

But the feeling of a serious illness did not leave Gogol. Beginning in 1836, work capacity began to decline. Creative upsurges became rare, and he plunged deeper and deeper into the abyss of depression and hypochondria. His faith became violent, filled with mystical ideas, which prompted him to go on religious "feats".

On the night of February 8-9, 1852, Gogol heard voices telling him that he would soon die. He tried to give papers with the manuscript of the second volume of Dead Souls c. A.P. Tolstoy, but he did not take it, so as not to strengthen Gogol in the thought of imminent death. Then Gogol burned the manuscript! After February 12, Gogol's condition deteriorated sharply. On February 21, during another severe attack, Gogol died.

Gogol was buried in the cemetery of the Danilovsky Monastery in Moscow. But immediately after his death, terrible rumors spread around the city that he was buried alive.

Lethargy, medical error or suicide? The mystery of Gogol's death

The mystery of the death of the greatest classic of literature, Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol, has been haunting scientists, historians, and researchers for more than a century and a half. How did the writer actually die?

The main version of what happened.

Sopor

The most common version. The rumor about the allegedly terrible death of the writer, who was buried alive, turned out to be so tenacious that many still consider it an absolutely proven fact.

In part, rumors about his burial were created alive without knowing it ... Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol. The fact is that the writer was subject to fainting and somnambulistic states. Therefore, the classic was very afraid that in one of the attacks he would be mistaken for dead and buried.

This fact is almost unanimously denied by modern historians.

“During the exhumation, which was carried out in a certain secrecy, only about 20 people gathered at Gogol’s grave ... - writes in his article “The Mystery of Gogol’s Death,” an associate professor at the Perm Medical Academy Mikhail Davidov. - The writer V. Lidin became essentially the only source of information about the exhumation of Gogol. At first, he told about the reburial to the students of the Literary Institute and his acquaintances, later he left written memoirs. Lidin's stories were untruthful and contradictory. It was he who claimed that the writer's oak coffin was well preserved, the lining of the coffin was torn and scratched from the inside, a skeleton lay in the coffin, unnaturally twisted, with the skull turned to one side. So, with the light hand of Lidin, who was inexhaustible in his inventions, the terrible legend that the writer was buried alive went for a walk around Moscow.

To understand the inconsistency of the lethargic dream version, it is enough to think about the following fact: the exhumation was carried out 79 years after the burial! It is known that the decomposition of the body in the grave occurs incredibly quickly, and after only a few years, only bone tissue remains from it, and the discovered bones no longer have close connections with each other. It is not clear how, after eight decades, some kind of “twisting of the body” could be established ... And what remains of the 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 upholstery of the coffin.”

And according to the memoirs of the sculptor Ramazanov, who took off the death mask of the writer, post-mortem changes and the beginning of the process of tissue decomposition were clearly visible on the face of the deceased.

However, the version of Gogol's lethargic dream is still alive.

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

“The coffin was not found right away,” he told the students of the Literary Institute, “for some reason, it turned out not to be where they were digging, but somewhat at a distance, to the side. And when they pulled it out of the ground - flooded with lime, seemingly strong, from oak planks - and opened it, bewilderment was added to the heart trembling of those present. In the fobo lay a skeleton with a skull turned to one side. No one has found an explanation for this. Someone superstitious, probably, then thought: “Well, after all, the publican - during his life, as if not alive, and after death, not dead, this strange great man.”

Lidin's stories stirred up old rumors that Gogol was afraid of being buried alive in a state of lethargy and, seven years before his death, bequeathed: “My body should not be buried until clear 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 testament had not been fulfilled, that he was buried in a lethargic state, he woke up in a coffin and experienced nightmarish minutes of a new death...

In fairness, it must be said that Lidin's version did not inspire confidence. Sculptor N. Ramazanov, who took off Gogol's death mask, recalled: “I did not suddenly decide to take off the mask, but the prepared coffin ... finally, the incessantly arriving crowd of people who wanted to say goodbye to the dear deceased forced me and my old man, who pointed out signs of destruction, to hurry ... .” There was also an explanation for the rotation of the skull: the side boards at the coffin were the first to rot, the lid falls under the weight of the soil, presses on the dead man’s head, and it turns to its side on the so-called “Atlantean vertebra”.

Then Lidin launched a new version. In his written memoirs of the exhumation, he told a new story, even more terrible and mysterious than his oral stories. “This is what Gogol's ashes were like,” 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. At the beginning of the opening of the grave at a shallow depth, much higher than the crypt with a walled coffin, a skull was discovered, 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 raised around the remains of the great writer?

They remembered that in 1908, when a heavy stone was installed on the grave, a brick crypt had to be erected over the coffin to strengthen the foundation. It was then that the mysterious intruders could steal the writer's skull. As for interested parties, it was not without reason that rumors circulated around Moscow that the skulls of Shchepkin and Gogol were secretly kept in the unique collection of A. A. Bakhrushin, a passionate collector of theatrical relics ...

And Lidin, inexhaustible in inventions, amazed the listeners with new sensational details: they say, when the ashes of the writer were taken from the Danilov Monastery to Novodevichy, some of those present at the reburial could not resist and took some relics for themselves as a keepsake. One allegedly pulled off Gogol's rib, the other - the tibia, the third - the boot. Lidin himself even showed the guests a volume of a lifetime edition of Gogol's works, in the binding of which he inserted a piece of fabric, torn off by him from the coat of Gogol lying in the coffin.

In 1931, the remains were exhumed to transfer the body of the writer to the Novodevichy cemetery. But then a surprise awaited those present at the exhumation - there was no skull in the coffin! The monks of the monastery told during interrogation that on the eve of the centenary of the birth of Gogol in 1909, the grave of the great classic was being restored at the cemetery. During the restoration work, the Moscow collector and millionaire Alexei Bakhrushin, an extravagant personality of those times, appeared at the cemetery. Presumably, it was he who decided on sacrilege, paying the gravediggers to steal the skull. Bakhrushin himself died in 1929 and forever took the secret of the current location of the skull to the grave.

The merchant crowned the writer's head with a silver wreath and placed it in a special rosewood box with a glass window. However, "acquisition of the relic" did not bring happiness to the collector - Bakhrushin began to have troubles in business and in the family. Moscow townsfolk associated these events with "a blasphemous disturbance of the peace of the mystic writer."

Bakhrushin himself was not happy with his "exhibit". But where was it to go? Throw away? Sacrilege! To give to someone means publicly
confess to the desecration of the grave, incur disgrace, prison! Bury back? Difficult, since the crypt was soundly bricked by order of Bakhrushin.

The unfortunate merchant was rescued by chance ... Rumors about Gogol's skull reached the nephew of Nikolai Vasilyevich, Lieutenant of the Navy Yanovsky. The latter decided to "restore justice": to get the skull of a famous relative by any means and bury it, as required by the Orthodox faith. Thus, the remains of Gogol will be "calmed down".

Yanovsky, without an invitation, came to Bakhrushin, put a revolver on the table and said: “There are two cartridges here. One in the trunk for you if you do not give me the skull of Nikolai Vasilyevich, the other in the drum - for me if I have to kill you. Decide!"

Bakhrushin was not afraid. On the contrary, he gladly gave away the “exhibit”. But Yanovsky could not fulfill his intention for a number of reasons. Gogol's skull, according to one version, came to Italy in the spring of 1911, where it was kept in the house of the captain of the navy, Borghese. And in the summer of the same year, the skull-relic was stolen. And now it is not known what happened to him ... Whether it is true or not, history is silent. Only the absence of a skull was officially confirmed - this is stated in the documents of the NKVD.

According to rumors, at one time a secret group was formed, the purpose of which was to search for Gogol's skull. But nothing is known about the results of her activities - all documents on this topic were destroyed.

According to legends, the one who owns Gogol's skull can directly communicate with dark forces, fulfill any desires and command the world. They say that today it is kept in the personal collection of a famous oligarch, one of the five Forbes. But even if this is true, it will probably never be announced publicly..

A ceremonial bust was placed over the new grave by Stalin's order. The mystery of the death of Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol has not been solved to this day.

When in 1931 the ashes of Gogol were transferred to the Novodevichy Cemetery and the sculptor Tomsky made a bust of Gogol with a golden inscription below it “From the Soviet Government”, the stone-symbol with a cross was not needed ... Only a tombstone made of black marble with an epitaph from the prophet was left on the grave of the writer Jeremiah: "They will laugh at my bitter word." And "Golgotha", together with a white marble bust of Gogol on a column, was thrown into the pit.

This multi-ton stone, at the request of Bulgakov's widow, was hardly removed and dragged along the boards to the grave of the creator of the mystical creation "Master and Margarita", laying it upside down ... So Gogol "ceded" his crossstone to Bulgakov.

By the way, in 1931, when opening the coffin of Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol, Soviet writers revealed their “dead souls”: they robbed the deceased, tearing off shreds “for memory” from the coat of the great “soul-seeker” writer, from his boots ... They did not disdain to take even some bones ... Soon these "creators of the new Soviet literature" fully experienced what the fetish merchant Bakhrushin ...

Suicide

In the last months of his life, Gogol experienced a severe spiritual crisis. The writer was shocked by the death of his close friend, Ekaterina Mikhailovna Khomyakova who died suddenly of a rapidly developing disease at the age of 35. The classic stopped writing, spent most of his time in prayer and fasting furiously. Gogol was seized by the fear of death, the writer reported to his acquaintances that he heard voices telling him that he would die soon.

It was during that hectic period, when the writer was half-delirious, that he burned the manuscript of the second volume of Dead Souls. It is believed that he did this largely under the pressure of his confessor, Archpriest Matthew Konstantinovsky, who was the only person to read this never published work and advised to destroy the records.

The writer's depression intensified. He grew weak, slept very little, and ate practically nothing. In fact, the writer voluntarily lived himself out of the world.

According to the doctor Tarasenkova, who observed Nikolai Vasilyevich, in the last period of his life, he aged “at once” in a month. By February 10, Gogol's forces had already left Gogol so much that he could no longer leave the house. On February 20, the writer fell into a feverish state, did not recognize anyone, and kept whispering some kind of prayer. A council of doctors gathered at the bedside of the patient prescribes “compulsory treatment” for him. For example, bloodletting with leeches. Despite all efforts, at 8 o'clock in the morning on February 21, he was gone.

However, the version that the writer deliberately "starved himself to death", that is, in fact, committed suicide, is not supported by most researchers. And for a fatal outcome, an adult needs not to eat for 40 days. Gogol refused food for about three weeks, and even then periodically allowed himself to eat a few tablespoons of oatmeal soup and drink linden tea.
CONTACTS WITH ANGELS

There is a version that a mental disorder could happen not because of an illness, but "on religious grounds." As they would say today, he was drawn into a sect. The writer, being an atheist, began to believe in God, think about religion and wait for the end of the world.

It is known that after joining the “Martyrs of Hell” sect, Gogol spent almost all his time in a makeshift church, where, in the company of parishioners, he tried to “establish contact” with angels, prayers and fasting, bringing himself to such a state that he began to hallucinate, during which he saw devils, babies with wings, and women resembling the Mother of God in their attire.

Gogol spent all his money savings on going to Jerusalem with his mentor and a group of sectarians like him to the Holy Sepulcher and meet the end of time on holy land.

The organization of the trip takes place in the strictest secrecy, the writer tells his family and friends that he is going to be treated, only a few will know that he was going to stand at the origins of a new humanity. Leaving, he asks everyone he knew for forgiveness and says that he will never see them again.

The trip took place in February 1848, but the miracle did not happen - the apocalypse did not happen. Some historians claim that the organizer of the pilgrimage planned to give the sectarians an alcoholic drink with poison to drink, so that everyone would go to the next world at once, but the alcohol dissolved the poison, and it did not work.

Having suffered a fiasco, he allegedly fled, leaving his followers, who, in turn, returned home, barely scraping together money for the return trip. However, there is no documentary evidence for this.

Gogol returned home. His trip did not bring spiritual relief, on the contrary, it only aggravated the situation. He becomes withdrawn, strange in communication, capricious and untidy in clothes.
As Granovsky later recalled, a black cat suddenly approached the grave, into which the coffin had already been lowered.

No one knew where he came from in the cemetery, and church workers reported that he had never been seen either in the temple or in the surrounding area.

“You will involuntarily believe in mysticism,” the professor will write later. “Women groaned, believing that the soul of the writer moved into the cat.”

When the burial was completed, the cat disappeared as suddenly as it appeared, no one saw him leave.

medical error

DRAMA IN THE HOUSE ON NIKITSKY BOULEVARD

Gogol spent the last four years of his life in Moscow in a house on Nikitsky Boulevard.

Gogol met the owners of the house, Count Alexander Petrovich and Countess Anna Georgievna Tolstoy, at the end of the 30s, the acquaintance grew into a close friendship, and the count and his wife did everything to make the writer live freely and comfortably in their house. It was in this house on Nikitsky Boulevard that the final drama of Gogol was played out.

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.

On Monday, February 11, Gogol was exhausted to such an extent that he could not walk and went to bed. He received friends who came to him reluctantly, spoke little, dozed off. But he also found the strength to defend the service in the house church of Count Tolstoy. At 3 o'clock in the morning from February 11 to 12, after a 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 a candle. Semyon begged him on his knees not to burn the manuscripts, but the writer stopped him: “None of your business! Pray! Sitting on a chair in front of the fire, he waited until everything had burned down, got up, crossed himself, kissed Semyon, returned to his room, lay down on the sofa and wept.

“That's what I did! - he said the next morning to Tolstoy, - I wanted to burn some things that had long been prepared for that, but I burned everything. How strong the evil one is - that's what he moved me to! And I was there a lot of practical clarified and outlined ... I thought to send to friends as a keepsake from a notebook: let them do what they wanted. Now everything is gone."

AGONY

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

Tarasenkov urged Gogol to start eating normally in order to restore his strength, but the patient was indifferent to his exhortations. At the insistence of the doctors, Tolstoy asked Metropolitan Philaret to influence Gogol, to strengthen his confidence in the doctors. But nothing had an effect on Gogol; to all persuasions, he answered quietly and meekly: “Leave me; I'm good." He stopped taking care of himself, did not wash, did not comb his hair, did not dress. He ate crumbs - bread, prosphora, gruel, prunes. I drank water with red wine, linden tea.

On Monday, February 17, he went to bed in a dressing gown and boots and did not get up again. In bed, he proceeded to the sacraments of repentance, communion and unction, listened to all the gospels in full consciousness, holding a candle in his hands and crying. “If it pleases God that I live still, I will live,” he said to friends who urged him to be treated. On this day, the doctor A. Over, invited by Tolstoy, examined him. He gave no advice, rescheduling the conversation for the next day.

Dr. Klimenkov took the stage, striking those present with his rudeness and insolence. He shouted his questions to Gogol, as if in front of him was a deaf or unconscious person, trying to feel for a pulse by force. "Leave me!" Gogol told him and turned away.

Klimenkov insisted on active treatment: bloodletting, wrapping in wet cold sheets, etc. But Tarasenkov suggested that everything be postponed 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 told Evenius the history of the disease, emphasizing the strangeness in the patient's behavior, allegedly indicating that "his consciousness is not in a natural position." “Leave the patient without benefits or treat him like a person who does not control himself?” Over asked. “Yes, you need to force-feed him,” Evenius said importantly.

After that, the doctors went to the patient, began to question him, examine, feel. Moans and cries of the patient were heard from the room. "Don't disturb me, for God's sake!" he finally shouted. But they no longer paid attention to him. It was decided to put two leeches to Gogol's nose, to do a cold dousing on his head in a warm bath. Klimenkov undertook to perform all these procedures, and Tarasenkov hurried to leave, "so as not to be a witness to the suffering of the sufferer."

When he returned three hours later, Gogol was already taken out of the bath, six leeches were hanging 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, ordered to keep the bleeding as long as possible, put mustard plasters on the limbs, a fly on the back of the head, ice on the head, and inside a decoction of marshmallow root with laurel cherry water. “Their treatment was inexorable,” Tarasenkov recalled, “they ordered like a madman, shouted in front of him, as in front of a corpse. Klimenkov molested him, crushed, tossed, poured some kind of 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 around on his own, lay quietly and calmly when he was not being treated. Tried to drink. By evening he began to lose his memory, muttering indistinctly: “Come on, come on! Well, what is it? At eleven o'clock he suddenly shouted loudly: "Ladder, hurry, give me a ladder!" He made an attempt to get up. He was lifted out of bed and placed on a chair. But he was already so weak that his head could not hold and fell like a newborn baby. 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 run into the medical executioner Klimenkov, who, as they later said, tortured the dying Gogol all night, giving him calomel, covering his body with hot bread, which made Gogol groan and scream piercingly. He died without regaining consciousness at 8 am on February 21 on Thursday. When at ten o'clock in the morning Tarasenkov arrived at Nikitsky Boulevard, the deceased was already lying on the table, dressed in a frock coat, in which he usually walked.

Each of the three versions of the writer's death has its adherents and opponents. One way or another, this mystery has not been solved so far.

“I will tell you without exaggeration,” he wrote Ivan Turgenev Aksakov, - since I can remember, nothing has made such a depressing impression on me as the death of Gogol ... This strange death is a historical event and is not immediately clear; this is a mystery, a heavy, formidable mystery - one must try to unravel it ... But the one who solves it will not find anything encouraging in it.

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

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

In his will, Gogol shamed those who "will be attracted by some kind of attention to rotting dust, which is no longer mine." But the windy descendants were not ashamed, violated the writer's testament, with unclean hands began to stir up "rotting dust" for fun. They did not respect his covenant not to erect any monument on his grave.

The Aksakovs brought to Moscow from the Black Sea coast a stone resembling Golgotha, the hill on which Jesus Christ was crucified. This stone became the basis for the cross on the grave of Gogol. Next to him, a black stone in the form of a truncated pyramid with inscriptions on the edges was installed on the grave.

The day before the opening of the Gogol burial, these stones and the cross were taken away somewhere and sunk into oblivion. It was not until the early 1950s that Mikhail Bulgakov's widow accidentally discovered Gogol's Golgotha ​​stone in a cutters' shed 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 for 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 opened on Prechistensky Boulevard. This sculpture, depicting a deeply dejected Gogol at the moment of his heavy thoughts, caused mixed reviews. Some enthusiastically praised her, others furiously condemned her. But everyone agreed: Andreev managed to create a work of the highest artistic merit.

Disputes around the original author's interpretation of the image of Gogol did not continue to subside even in Soviet times, which could not bear the spirit of decline and despondency even among the great writers of the past. Socialist Moscow needed a different Gogol - clear, bright, calm. Not Gogol of Selected Places from Correspondence with Friends, but Gogol of Taras Bulba, The Government Inspector, Dead Souls.

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

In 1952, on the centennial anniversary of Gogol's death, a new monument was erected on the site of the Andreevsky monument, created by the sculptor N. Tomsky and the architect S. Golubovsky. The Andreevsky monument was moved to the territory of the 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 the Arbat Square!

The controversy surrounding the Moscow monuments to Gogol continues even now. Some Muscovites are inclined to see the transfer of monuments as a manifestation of Soviet totalitarianism and party dictates. 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.

"Encyclopedia of Death. Chronicles of Charon»

Part 2: Dictionary of Chosen Deaths

The ability to live well and die well is one and the same science.

Epicurus

GOGOL Nikolay Vasilievich

(1809-1852) Russian writer

Contemporaries say that the last year and a half of Gogol's life was tormented by the fear of death. This fear was multiplied when, on January 26, 1852, Ekaterina Khomyakova, the sister of the poet N. M. Yazykov, with whom Gogol was friends, died. (She died of typhoid while pregnant.) Dr. A. T. Tarasenkov says that “her death not only struck her husband and relatives, but struck Gogol ... He, perhaps, saw death face to face for the first time here ..." A. P. Annenkov also writes about the same: "... the contemplation of death was unbearable for him." At the memorial service, peering into the face of the deceased, Gogol, according to A. S. Khomyakov, said: "It's all over for me ..."

Indeed, very soon an attack of an illness incomprehensible to those around him so seized the writer that he found himself at the last line of life.

There are two portraits of Gogol's death - medical and psychological. The first is compiled from the notes of eyewitnesses (including doctors). Dr. Tarasenkov recalls Gogol's last day:

"... When I returned three hours after leaving, at six o'clock in the evening, the bath had already been done, six large leeches were hanging by the nostrils; a lotion was applied to the head. They say that when they undressed him and put him in the bath, he moaned heavily, shouted, said that they were doing it in vain; after they again put him in bed without linen, he said: "Cover your shoulder, cover your back!", And when they put leeches, he repeated: "Don't!"; when they were put , he repeated: "Remove the leeches, lift (from the mouth) the leeches!" - and tried to get them with his hand. With me they hung for a long time, his hand was held with force so that he would not touch them. Over and Klimenkov arrived at the seventh hour They ordered to keep the bleeding longer, to put mustard plasters on the limbs, then a fly on the back of the head, ice on the head, and inside a decoction of marshmallow root with cherry laurel water. Their treatment was implacable; they disposed of, as with a madman, shouted in front of him, as in front of a corpse.

Klimenkov molested him, crushed, grumbled, poured some kind of caustic alcohol on his head, and when the patient groaned from this, the doctor asked: "What hurts, Nikolai Vasilyevich? Eh? Speak!" But he groaned and did not answer. - They left, I stayed all evening until twelve o'clock and carefully watched what was happening. The pulse quickly and distinctly dropped, became even more frequent and weaker, breathing, already labored in the morning, became even more difficult; already sick, he could not turn around, lay quietly on one side and was calm when nothing was done to him ...

Late in the evening he began to forget, to lose his memory. "Come on keg!" - he said once, showing that he was thirsty. He was served the same glass of broth, but he could no longer raise his head and hold the glass... same!" At about eleven o'clock he shouted loudly: "Ladder, hurry up, give me the ladder!" It seemed that he wanted to get up. He was lifted out of bed and placed on a chair. At this time, he was already so weak that his head could not rest on his neck and fell mechanically, like that of a newborn child. Then they tied a fly around his neck, put on a shirt (he was lying naked after the bath); he just moaned.

When they put him back to bed, he lost all senses; his pulse stopped beating; he wheezed, his eyes opened, but seemed lifeless. It seemed that death was coming, but it was a fainting spell that lasted several minutes. The pulse soon returned, but became barely perceptible. After this swoon, Gogol no longer asked to drink or turn around; always lay on his back with his eyes closed, not saying a word. At twelve o'clock in the morning, my feet began to get cold. I put down the jug of hot water, began to give the broth to swallow more often, and this, apparently, enlivened him; however, breathing soon became hoarse and even more labored; the skin was covered with cold perspiration, it turned blue under the eyes, the face was haggard, like that of a dead man. In this position I left the sufferer...

They told me that Klimenkov arrived shortly after me, stayed with him for several hours at night: he gave him calomel and covered his whole body with hot bread; at the same time, the groaning and piercing cry resumed again. All this probably helped him to die faster.

Gogol's death happened at eight o'clock in the morning on February 21, 1852. E. F. Wagner, who was at the same time, wrote on the same day to her son-in-law (M. P. Pogodin):

"... Nikolai Vasilievich died, he was still without memory, he was a little delirious, apparently he did not suffer, he was quiet all night, he only breathed heavily; by morning his breathing became less and less, and he seemed to fall asleep ..."

Half a century later, Dr. N. N. Bazhenov stated that the cause of Gogol's death was improper treatment. “During the last 15-20 years of his life,” Bazhenov asserted, “he suffered from that form of mental illness, which in our science is called periodic psychosis, in the form of so-called periodic melancholia. In all likelihood, his general nutrition and strength were torn him in Italy (almost in the autumn of 1845) malaria.He died during an attack of periodic melancholy from exhaustion and acute anemia of the brain, caused as by the very form of the disease, accompanying it with starvation and the rapid decline in nutrition and strength associated with it, - and wrong debilitating treatment, especially bloodletting."

The rough prose of medical reports is opposed by a wonderful psychological portrait of the dying Gogol, created by the critic I. Zolotussky.

"He did not appear at the funeral (E. Khomyakova), citing illness and malaise of the nerves. He himself served a memorial service for the deceased in the church and lit a candle. At the same time, he remembered, as if saying goodbye to them, all those close to his heart, all those whom she loved." As if in gratitude, she brought them all to me," he said to the Aksakovs, "it became easier for me."

"A terrible moment of death."

“Why is it terrible?” they asked him, “just to be sure of God’s mercy to a suffering person, and then it is gratifying to think about death.” He replied:

"But this must be asked of those who have crossed this minute."

Ten days before his death, Gogol, being in a painful mental crisis, burned the manuscript of the second volume of the poem (novel) "Dead Souls" and a number of other papers. “I must die,” he said after this to Khomyakov, “I’m ready and I’ll die ...” He took almost nothing from the hands of Semyon, who stood permanently at his head (after being burned, Gogol moved to the bed and did not get up again), only warm red wine diluted with water.

The worried owner of the house convened a council, all the well-known doctors then available in Moscow gathered at Gogol's bedside. He was lying, turned to the wall, in a dressing gown and boots and looked at the icon of the Mother of God leaning against the wall. He wanted to die quietly, calmly. The clear consciousness that he was dying was written on his face. The voices he heard before burning the second volume were voices from there - the same voices his father had heard shortly before his death. In this sense, he was in the father. He believed that he must die, and this faith was enough to bring him to the grave without any dangerous illness.

And the doctors, not understanding the cause of his illness and looking for it in the body, tried to treat the body. At the same time, they raped his body, offending the soul with this violence, with this interference in the mystery of care. It was a departure, not a suicide, a conscious, irreversible departure ... He could not live to simply live, to drag out days and expect old age, he could not. To live and not write (and he was no longer able to write), to live and stand still meant for him to become a dead man during his lifetime ...

Gogol's torments before his death were the torments of a man who was not understood, who was again surrounded by surprised people who believed that he had gone mad, that he was starving himself, that he almost thought of committing suicide. They could not believe that the spirit was so directing him that his order was enough for the body to obey unquestioningly.

Doctors were confused about the diagnosis, some said that he had inflammation in the intestines, others said that he had typhus, the fourth called it nervous fever, the fifth did not hide their suspicion of insanity. In fact, they no longer treated him like Gogol, but like a madman, and this was the natural end of that misunderstanding that had begun since the time of The Government Inspector. The doctors in this case represented the crowd, the public, which did all this not from evil, but from a tragic divergence between itself and the poet, who was dying in a clear mind and solid memory.

At the beginning of 1852, Gogol wrote to Vyazemsky: we must leave "a will after ourselves to posterity, which should also be dear to us and close to our hearts, as children are close to the heart of their father (otherwise the connection between the present and the future is broken) ..." He thought about this connection, and his death - a strange, mysterious death - was this connection, for Gogol in it brought his search to the end. If earlier they accused him of hypocrisy, of hypocrisy, they called him Tartuffe, then there was no longer any hypocrisy. Gogol's rise was confirmed by his last act on earth.

Gogol was buried in the graveyard of the Danilov Monastery, but in 1931 the ashes of the writer were transferred to the Novodevichy cemetery. The reburial gave rise to a legend that Gogol died twice, and the second time was truly terrible - underground, in the darkness and crampedness of the coffin. During the exhumation, they found that the lining of the coffin from the inside was all torn! This means that, perhaps, Gogol was buried alive - in a state of lethargic sleep. This is what he was afraid of all his life and more than once warned that he should not be buried hastily until they were convinced of the authenticity of his death! Alas! The warning didn't help.

Secrets of Gogol, his work is filled with contradiction. There are many brilliant names in the history of mankind, among which the great Russian writer of the 19th century, Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol (1809-1852), occupies a prominent place. The uniqueness of this personality lies in the fact that, despite a severe mental illness, he created masterpieces of literary art and maintained a high intellectual potential until the end of his life.

Gogol himself in one of his letters to the historian M.P. Pogodin in 1840 explained the likelihood of such paradoxes as follows:

"The one who was created to create in the depths of his soul, to live and breathe his creations, he must be strange in many ways."

Nikolai Vasilyevich, as you know, was a great worker. In order to give a finished look to his works and make them as perfect as possible, he reworked them several times, ruthlessly destroying poorly written ones.

All his works, as well as the creations of other great geniuses, were created by incredible labor and exertion of all spiritual forces.

The famous Russian writer-Slavophile Sergey Timofeevich Aksakov one of causes of illness and tragic death of Gogol considered him "immense creative activity."

Let's try once again to consider several seemingly mutually exclusive factors in Gogol's life.

Secrets of Gogol. HEREDITY

In development mystical inclinations Gogol played an important role heredity. According to the recollections of relatives and friends, Gogol's maternal grandfather and grandmother were superstitious, religious, believed in omens and predictions.

A maternal aunt (memoirs of Gogol's younger sister Olga) was with "oddities": for six weeks she smeared her head with a tallow candle so that "prevent graying of hair" was extremely slow and slow, dressed for a long time, was always late for the table, “came only to the second course”, “sitting at the table, grimacing”, having lunch “She asked me to give her a piece of bread.”

One of Gogol's nephews (the son of Maria's sister), left an orphan at the age of 13 (after the death of his father in 1840 and his mother in 1844), later, according to the recollections of his relatives, "became mentally ill" and committed suicide.

Gogol's younger sister Olga did not develop well in childhood. Until the age of 5, she could not walk well, "holding on to the wall" She had a poor memory and had difficulty learning foreign languages.

In adulthood, she became religious, was afraid to die, visited church every day, where she prayed for a long time.

Another sister (according to Olga's memoirs) "loved to fantasize": in the middle of the night she woke the maids, took them out into the garden and made them sing and dance.

The writer's father Vasily Afanasyevich Gogol-Yanovsky (c. 1778 - 1825) was extremely punctual and pedantic. He had literary abilities, wrote poetry, stories, comedies, had a sense of humor. A.N. Annensky wrote about him:

« Gogol's father is an unusually witty, inexhaustible joker and storyteller. He wrote a comedy for the home theater of his distant relative Dmitry Prokofievich Troshchinsky (retired Minister of Justice), and he appreciated his original mind and gift for words.

A.N. Annensky believed that Gogol "I inherited humor, love for art and theater from my father." At the same time, Vasily Afanasyevich was suspicious, “I was looking for various diseases in myself”, believed in miracles and destiny. His marriage had a strange, mystical character.

I saw my future wife in a dream at the age of 14.

He had a strange, but rather vivid dream, imprinted for life.

At the altar of one church, the Most Holy Theotokos showed him a girl in white clothes and said that this was his betrothed. Waking up, on the same day he went to his acquaintances Kosyarovsky and saw their daughter, a very beautiful one-year-old girl Masha, a copy of the one that lay at the altar.

Since then, he called her his bride and waited for many years to marry her. Without waiting for her to come of age, he proposed when she was only 14 years old. The marriage turned out to be happy. Spouses for 20 years, until the death of Vasily Afanasyevich from consumption in 1825, could not do without each other for a single day.

Gogol's mother Maria Ivanovna (1791-1868) , had an unbalanced character, easily fell into despair. There were occasional mood swings. According to the historian V.M. Shenroku, she was impressionable and distrustful, and "her suspicion reached its extreme limits and reached an almost morbid state." Her mood often changed for no apparent reason: from lively, cheerful and sociable, she suddenly became silent, closed in on herself, “fell into strange thoughtfulness”, sat for several hours without changing her position, looking at one point, not responding to calls.

According to the recollections of relatives, Maria Ivanovna was impractical in everyday life, bought unnecessary things from peddlers that had to be returned, frivolously took on risky ventures, and did not know how to balance income with expenses.

She later wrote about herself: “My character and my husband are cheerful, but sometimes gloomy thoughts came over me, I foresaw misfortunes, believed in dreams.”

Despite early marriage and a favorable attitude from her husband, she never learned how to run a household.

These strange properties, as is known, are easily recognized in the actions of such famous Gogol artistic characters as the "historical man" Nozdryov or the Manilovs.

The family had many children. The couple had 12 children. But the first children were born stillborn or died shortly after birth.

Desperate to give birth to a healthy and viable child, she turns to the holy fathers and to prayer. Together with her husband, she goes to Sorochintsy to the famous doctor Trofimovsky, visits the temple, where, in front of the icon of St. Nicholas the Pleasant, she asks to send her a son and swears to name the child Nicholas.

In the same year, an entry appeared in the metric sheet of the Church of the Transfiguration of the Savior: “In the town of Sorochintsy in the month of March, on the 20th day (Gogol himself celebrated his birthday on March 19), the son Nikolai was born to the landowner Vasily Afanasyevich Gogol-Yanovsky.

Successor Mikhail Trofimovsky.

From the very first days of his birth, Nikosha (as his mother called him) became the most adored creature in the family, even after the second son Ivan was born a year later, and then several daughters in succession. She considered her firstborn son sent to her by God and predicted a great future for him. She told everyone that he was a genius, since she did not succumb to persuasion

When he was still in his youth, she began to attribute to him the discovery of the railway, the steam engine, the authorship of literary works written by other people, which caused him indignation.

After the unexpected death of her husband in 1825, she began to behave inappropriately, talked to him as if he were alive, demanded that a grave be dug for her and put next to her.

Then she fell into a stupor: she stopped answering questions, sat without moving, looking at one point. She refused to take food, when trying to feed her, she sharply resisted, clenched her teeth, the broth was poured into her mouth by force. This state continued for two weeks.

Gogol himself considered her not quite mentally healthy. On August 12, 1839, he wrote from Rome to his sister Anna Vasilievna: "Thank God, our mother is now healthy, I mean her mental illness." At the same time, she was distinguished by kindness and gentleness, she was hospitable, there were always many guests in her house. Annensky wrote that Gogol "inherited from his mother a religious feeling and a desire to benefit people."

Maria Ivanovna died suddenly at the age of 77 from a stroke, outliving her son Nikolai by 16 years.

On the basis of information about heredity, it can be assumed that the development of mental illness, as well as a penchant for mysticism, Gogol was partially influenced by the mental imbalance of his mother, and he inherited his literary talent from his father.

Secrets of Gogol. CHILDHOOD FEARS

Gogol's childhood passed in the village of Vasilievka (Yanovshchina) of the Mirgorod district of the Poltava province, not far from the historical monuments-estates of Kochubey and Mazepa and the site of the famous Poltava battle.

Nikosha grew up sickly, thin, physically weak, "scrofulous". Sores and rashes often appeared on the body, red spots on the face; often watery eyes.

According to sister Olga, he was constantly treated with herbs, ointments, lotions, and various folk remedies.

Carefully protected from colds.

The first signs of a mental disorder with a mystical bias in the form of childhood fears were noticed at the age of 5 in 1814. The story of Gogol himself about them was recorded by his friend Alexandra Osipovna Smirnova-Rosset:

« I was five years old.

I was sitting alone in one of the rooms in Vasilievka. Father and mother left.

There was only one old nanny left with me, and she went away somewhere.

Twilight descended.

I pressed myself against the corner of the sofa and, in the midst of complete silence, listened to the sound of the long pendulum of the old wall clock.

There was a buzz in my ears. Something moved in and out. It seemed to me that the knock of the pendulum was the knock of time passing into eternity.

Suddenly, the faint meow of a cat broke the peace that weighed on me. I saw her, meowing, cautiously creeping towards me. I will never forget how she walked, stretching towards me and her soft paws weakly tapped her claws on the floorboards, and her green eyes sparkled with an unkind light. I was terrified. I climbed onto the couch and leaned against the wall.

“Kitty, kitty,” I called, wanting to cheer myself up. I jumped off the sofa, grabbed the cat, which easily gave itself into my hands, ran into the garden, where I threw it into the pond and several times, when it wanted to swim out and get ashore, I pushed it away with a pole.

I was scared, I was trembling and at the same time I felt some satisfaction, maybe it was revenge for the fact that she scared me. But when she drowned and the last circles on the water fled, complete peace and silence settled in, I suddenly felt terribly sorry for the cat.

I felt remorse, it seemed to me that I had drowned a man. I cried terribly and calmed down only when my father whipped me.

According to the description of the biographer P.A. Kulish, Gogol at the same age of 5, walking in the garden, heard voices, apparently of a frightening nature.

He was trembling, looking around fearfully, his face was an expression of horror. These first signs of a mental disorder were regarded by relatives as increased impressionability and a feature of childhood.

They were not given much importance, although his mother began to protect him even more carefully and pay even more attention than other children.

Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol-Yanovsky did not differ in development from his peers, except that at the age of 3 he learned the alphabet and began to write letters with chalk. He was taught to read and write by one seminarian, first at home with his younger brother Ivan, and then for one academic year (1818-1819) at the Higher Department of the 1st class of the Poltava district school. At the age of 10, he suffered a severe mental shock: during the summer holidays in 1819, his 9-year-old brother Ivan fell ill and died a few days later.

Nikosha, who was very friendly with his brother, sobbed for a long time, kneeling at his grave. He was brought home after persuasion. This family misfortune left a deep imprint in the soul of the child. Later, as a high school student, he often remembered his brother, wrote a ballad "Two fish" about your friendship with him.

According to the memoirs of Gogol himself, in childhood he was "distinguished by increased impressionability." Mother often talked about goblin, demons, about the afterlife, about the terrible judgment for sinners, about the benefits for virtuous and righteous people.

The child's imagination vividly painted a picture of hell, in which "sinners were tormented by torments", and a picture of paradise, where righteous people were in bliss and contentment.

Gogol later wrote: “She described the eternal torment of sinners so terribly that it shocked me and awakened the highest thoughts.” Undoubtedly, these stories influenced the emergence of children's fears and painful nightmarish ideas. At the same age, he periodically began to have bouts of lethargy, when he stopped answering questions, sat motionless, looking at one point. In this regard, the mother began to express concern about his mental health more often.

Gogol's literary talent was first noticed by the writer V.V. Kapnist. Visiting Gogol's parents and listening to the poems of 5-year-old Nikoshi, he stated that "He's going to be a great talent."

Secrets of Gogol. THE MYSTERIOUSNESS OF NATURE

Much in Gogol's life was unusual, even his birth after a prayer in the church at the icon of St. Nicholas. Unusual, and at times mysterious, was his behavior in the gymnasium, about which he himself wrote to his relatives: “I am considered a mystery to everyone. No one has figured me out completely."

In May 1821, 12-year-old Nikolai Gogol-Yanovsky was assigned to the first class of the Nizhyn Gymnasium of Higher Sciences, for a 7-year course of study.

This prestigious educational institution was intended for boys from wealthy families (aristocrats and nobles). Living conditions were good. . Each of the 50 pupils had a separate room. Many were on full boarding provision.

Because of his secrecy and mystique, the schoolboys called him “mysterious Karla”, and because he sometimes suddenly fell silent during a conversation and did not finish the phrase he had started, they began to call him “a man of dead thought” (“blockage of thought”, according to A.V. Snezhnevsky, one of the symptoms characteristic of schizophrenia). Sometimes his behavior seemed incomprehensible to the pupils.

One of the pupils of the gymnasium, in the future the poet I.V. Lyubich-Romanovich (1805-1888) recalled: “Gogol sometimes forgot that he was a man. Sometimes he screams like a goat, walking around his room, then crows like a rooster in the middle of the night, then grunts like a pig.

To the bewilderment of the gymnasium students, he usually answered: "I prefer to be in the company of pigs than people."

Gogol often walked with his head down. According to the memoirs of the same Lyubich-Romanovich, he “he gave the impression of a person deeply occupied with something, or a harsh subject, neglecting all people. He considered our behavior to be the arrogance of aristocrats and did not want to know us.

Incomprehensible to them was his attitude to insulting attacks against him. He ignored them, stating: "I do not consider myself worthy of insults and do not take them upon myself." This angered his persecutors, and they continued to excel in their evil jokes and bullying.

Once a deputation was sent to him, which solemnly presented him with a huge honey cake as a gift. He threw it in the faces of the deputies, left the class and did not appear for two weeks.

His rare talent, the transformation of an ordinary person into a genius, was also a mystery. This mystery was not only for his mother, who almost from early childhood considered him a genius. The mystery was his lonely wandering life in different countries and cities.

The movement of his soul was also a mystery, sometimes filled with a joyful enthusiastic perception of the world, sometimes immersed in a deep and gloomy melancholy, which he called "spleen". Later, one of the educators of the Nizhyn gymnasium, who taught French, wrote about the mystery of Gogol's transformation into a brilliant writer:

“He was very lazy. I neglected the study of languages, especially in my subject.

He mimicked and copied everyone, branded them with nicknames.

But he had a good character and did it not out of a desire to offend anyone, but out of passion.

He loved drawing and literature. But it would be too ridiculous to think that Gogol-Yanovsky would be the famous writer Gogol. It's strange, really strange."

The impression of Gogol's mystery was given by his secrecy. He later recalled: “I did not confide my secret thoughts to anyone, did not do anything that could reveal the depths of my soul. And to whom and why would I express myself, so that they would laugh at my extravagance, so that they would consider me an ardent dreamer and an empty person.

As an adult and independent person, Gogol wrote to Professor S.P. Shevyrev (historian): “I am hidden from fear of letting in whole clouds of misunderstandings.”

But the case of Gogol's inadequate behavior, which agitated the entire gymnasium, seemed especially strange and incomprehensible. On this day, they wanted to punish Gogol for painting some kind of picture during the service, not listening to prayers. Seeing the executor summoned to him, Gogol screamed so piercingly that he frightened everyone.

Gymnasium student T.G. Pashchenko described this episode as follows:

“Suddenly there was a terrible alarm in all departments: “Gogol has gone berserk”! We ran and saw: Gogol's face was terribly distorted, his eyes sparkled with a wild brilliance, his hair was puffed up, his teeth gnashed, foam comes out of his mouth, beats furniture, falls to the floor and beats.

Orlai (principal of the gymnasium) came running and gently touched his shoulders. Gogol grabbed a chair and swung it. Four ministers seized him and took him to a special department of the local hospital, where he remained for two months, perfectly playing the role of a madman.

According to other pupils, Gogol was in the hospital for only two weeks. The high school students who attended him did not believe that it was an attack of illness. One of them wrote: "Gogol pretended to be so skillfully that he convinced everyone of his insanity." This was the reaction of his protest, expressed in violent psychomotor agitation.

It resembled catatonic excitement with hysterical components (information about his stay in the hospital and the conclusion of doctors could not be found in available sources). After his return from the hospital, the schoolboys looked at him with apprehension and avoided him.

Gogol did not particularly monitor his appearance. In his youth he was careless in his clothes. Educator P.A. Arseniev wrote:

“Gogol's appearance is unattractive. Who would have thought that under this ugly shell lies the personality of a brilliant writer, whom Russia is proud of.

His behavior remained incomprehensible and mysterious for many, when in 1839 the 30-year-old Gogol sat for days at the bedside of the dying young man Joseph Vielgorsky.

He wrote to his former student Balabina: “I live his dying days. It smells of the grave. A muffled voice whispers to me that this is for a short time. It is sweet for me to sit beside him and look at him. With what joy I would take his illness upon myself, if it would help restore him to health. M.P. Gogol wrote to Pogodin that he sits day and night at Vielgorsky's bedside and "does not feel tired." Some even suspected Gogol of homosexuality. Until the end of his days, Gogol remained an unusual and mysterious personality for many of his friends and acquaintances, and even for researchers of his work.

Secrets of Gogol. DIVING INTO RELIGION

“I almost don’t know how I came to Christ, seeing in him the key to the human soul,” Gogol wrote in The Author’s Confession. As a child, according to his recollections, despite the religiosity of his parents, he was indifferent to religion, did not really like to go to church and listen to long services.

“I went to church because they were ordered, I stood and saw nothing but the priest’s robe, and heard nothing but the nasty singing of the deacons, I was baptized because everyone was baptized,” he later recalled.

Being a high school student, according to the recollections of friends, he did not cross himself and did not bow. The first indications of Gogol's own religious feelings are in his letter to his mother in 1825 after the death of his father, when he was on the verge of suicide:

“I bless you, sacred faith, only in you do I find consolation and satisfaction of my sorrow.”

Religion became dominant in his life in the early 1940s. But the idea that there is some higher power in the world that helps him create brilliant works appeared at the age of 26. These were the most productive years in his work.

As mental disorders deepened and became more complex, Gogol began to turn more often to religion and prayers. In 1847 he wrote to V.A. Zhukovsky: “My health is so frail and at times it is so hard that it cannot be endured without God.” He told his friend Alexander Danilevsky that he wanted to gain "the freshness that embraces my soul" and he himself “is ready to follow the path outlined from above. We must humbly accept ailments, believing that they are useful. I can’t find words how to thank the heavenly providence for my illness.”

With the further development of painful phenomena, his religiosity also increases. He tells his friends that now he does not start “any business” without prayer.

In 1842, on religious grounds, Gogol met the pious old woman Nadezhda Nikolaevna Sheremeteva, a distant relative of the most famous count family. Having learned that Gogol often attends church, reads church books, helps poor people, she was imbued with respect for him. They found a common language and corresponded until her death.

In 1843, the 34-year-old Gogol wrote to his friends:

“The deeper I look into my life, the better I see the wonderful participation of the Higher Power in everything that concerns me.”

Gogol's piety deepened over the years. In 1843, his friend Smirnova noted that he was "so immersed in prayer that he did not notice anything around." He began to assert that "God created him and did not hide my purpose from me."

Then he wrote a strange letter to Yazykov from Dresden, with omissions and unfinished phrases, something like a spell:

“There is the wonderful and the incomprehensible. But the sobs and tears are deeply inspired. I pray in the depths of my soul that this does not happen to you, that dark doubt flies away from you, that the lordship that I embrace this minute will be more often on your soul.

Since 1844, he began to talk about the influence of "evil spirits." He writes to Aksakov: “Your excitement is the devil’s business. Beat this beast in the face and do not be embarrassed. The devil boasted of owning the whole world, but God did not give power. In another letter, he advises Aksakov to “read daily "imitation of Christ" and after reading, indulge in reflection.

The instructive tone of the preacher sounds more and more in the letters. The Bible began to be considered "the highest creation of the mind, the teacher of life and wisdom." He began to carry a prayer book with him everywhere, to be afraid of a thunderstorm, considering it "God's punishment."

Once, while visiting Smirnova, I was reading a chapter from the second volume of Dead Souls, and at that time a thunderstorm suddenly broke out.

“It is impossible to imagine what happened to Gogol,” Smirnova recalled. “He shook all over, stopped reading, and later explained that the thunder was the wrath of God, who threatened him from heaven for reading an unfinished work.”

Coming to Russia from abroad, Gogol always visited Optina Pustyn. I met the bishop, the rector and the brethren. He began to fear that God would punish him for "blasphemous works".

This idea was supported by the priest Matthew, who suggested that in the afterlife a terrible punishment would await him for such writings. In 1846, one of Gogol's acquaintances, Sturdza, saw him in Rome in one of the churches.

He prayed earnestly, made obeisances. “I found him tempted by the fire of spiritual and bodily suffering and striving for God with all the forces and methods of his mind and heart,” the stunned witness wrote in his memoirs.

Despite the fear of God's punishment, Gogol continues to work on the second volume of Dead Souls. Being abroad in 1845, the 36-year-old Gogol received a notice of acceptance on March 29 as an honorary member of Moscow University:

“The Imperial Moscow University, respecting Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol’s distinction in the academic world and merits in literary work in Russian literature, recognizes him as an honorary member with full confidence in assisting Moscow University in everything that can contribute to the success of the sciences.” In this important act for him, Gogol also saw the "province of God."

From the mid-40s, Gogol began to find many vices in himself. In 1846, he composed a prayer for himself: “Lord, bless this coming year, turn it all into fruit and labor, many-beneficial and beneficial, all for your service, all for the salvation of the soul.

Autumn with your highest light and the insight of the prophecy of your great miracles.

May the Holy Spirit descend on me and move my lips and destroy my sinfulness, impurity and vileness in me and turn me into a worthy temple. Lord, don't leave me."

In order to cleanse himself from sins, Gogol made a trip to Jerusalem at the beginning of 1848. Before the trip, he visited Optina Hermitage and asked the priest, rector and brethren to pray for him, sent money to the priest Matthew so that he "prayed for his physical and mental health" for the duration of his trip.

In Optina Hermitage, he turned to Elder Filaret: “For Christ's own sake, pray for me. Ask the rector and all the brethren to pray. My path is difficult.

Before going to the holy places in Jerusalem, Gogol wrote a spell for himself in the form of an appeal to God: “Fill his soul with a blessed thought throughout his journey. Remove from him the spirit of hesitation, the spirit of superstition, the spirit of thoughts of rebellious and exciting empty signs, the spirit of timidity and fear.

From that time on, he had ideas of self-accusation and self-abasement, under the influence of which he wrote a message to his compatriots: “In 1848, heavenly mercy removed the hand of death from me. I am almost healthy, but weakness heralds that life is in the balance.

I know that I have caused grief to many, and set others against me. My haste was the reason that my works appeared in an imperfect form. For everything that is offensive in them, I ask you to forgive me with that generosity with which only the Russian soul can forgive. There were many unpleasant and repulsive things in my communication with people.

This was partly due to petty pride. I ask you to forgive fellow writers for my disrespect for them. I apologize to the readers if there is anything inconvenient in the book. I ask you to expose all my shortcomings, which are in the book, my ignorance, thoughtlessness and arrogance. I ask everyone in Russia to pray for me. I will pray at the tomb of the Lord for all my compatriots.”

At the same time, Gogol writes a testamentary disposition with the following content: “Being in the full presence of memory and in sound mind, I state my last will. I ask you to pray for my soul, to treat the poor to dinner. I bequeath not to put any monuments over my grave. I bequeath to no one to mourn me.

Sin per soul will be taken by the one who will consider my death a significant loss. Please do not bury me until signs of decay appear. I mention this because during my illness, moments of vital numbness come over me, my heart and pulse stop beating. I bequeath to my compatriots my book called "The Farewell Tale". She was a source of tears that no one could see. It is not for me, the worst of all, suffering from a serious illness of my own imperfection, to make such speeches.

Upon returning from Jerusalem, he writes a letter to Zhukovsky:

“I was honored to spend the night at the tomb of the Savior and partake of the “holy mysteries”, but I did not become better.”

In May 1848 he went to his relatives in Vasilievka. According to Sister Olga, “I came with a mournful face, brought a bag with consecrated earth, icons, prayer books, a carnelian cross.” Being with relatives, he was not interested in anything, except for prayers, he attended church.

He wrote to his friends that after visiting Jerusalem he saw even more vices in himself.

“At the tomb of the Lord, I was as if in order to feel how much coldness of heart, selfishness and self-conceit are in me.”

Returning to Moscow, in September 1848 he visited S.T. Aksakov, who noticed a sharp change in him: “Uncertainty in everything. Not the Gogol. On such days, when, in his words, “there was a refreshment,” he wrote the second volume of Dead Souls.

He burned the first version of the book in 1845 to write a better one. At the same time, he explained:

"To be resurrected, one must die." By 1850 he had written 11 chapters of the already updated second volume.

Although he considered his book “sinful,” he did not hide the fact that he had material considerations: “many debts to Moscow writers,” which he wanted to pay off.

At the end of 1850 he made a trip to Odessa, as he did not endure the winter in Moscow well. But even in Odessa I did not feel the best way. At times there were bouts of melancholy, he continued to express ideas of self-accusation and delusions of sinfulness. He was absent-minded, thoughtful, prayed earnestly, spoke of the "last judgment" beyond the grave.

At night, “sighs” and whispers were heard from his room: “Lord, have mercy.” Pletnev from Odessa wrote that he "does not work and does not live." I began to limit myself in food. I lost weight and looked bad. Once he came to Lev Pushkin, who had guests who were struck by his haggard appearance, and the child among them, seeing Gogol, burst into tears.

From Odessa in May 1851, Gogol went to Vasilievka. According to the recollections of his relatives, during his stay he was not interested in anything except prayers, he read religious books daily, and carried a prayer book with him.

According to Sister Elizabeth, he was withdrawn, focused on his thoughts, "became cold and indifferent to us."

The ideas of sinfulness were becoming more and more strengthened in his mind. I stopped believing in the possibility of cleansing from sins and in forgiveness from God.

At times he became anxious, waited for death, slept badly at night, changed rooms, said that the light interfered with him. He often prayed on his knees. At the same time, he corresponded with friends.

Apparently, he experienced an obsession with "evil spirits", as he wrote to one of his friends: "The devil is closer to a man, he unceremoniously sits on his back and controls, forcing him to do tomfoolery after tomfoolery."

From the end of 1851 until his death, Gogol did not leave Moscow. He lived on Nikitsky Boulevard in the house of Talyzin in the apartment of Alexander Petrovich Tolstoy. He was completely dominated by religious feelings, repeating spells written by him back in 1848:

“Lord, drive away all the deceptions of the evil spirit, save the poor people, do not let the evil one rejoice and take possession of us, do not let the enemy mock us.”

For religious reasons, he began to fast even on non-fast days, and ate very little. I read only religious literature.

Corresponded with the priest Matthew, who called him to repentance and to prepare for the afterlife.

After the death of Khomyakova (the sister of his deceased friend Yazykov), he began to say that he was preparing for the “terrible moment”: "It's all over for me." Since that time, he began to obediently wait for the end of his life.

Member of the Russian Geographical Society (RGO) of the city of Armavir Frolov Sergey

The mysterious story of the death of a genius impressed everyone so much that even after a century and a half, many different rumors continue to circulate about it.

What really happened

In January 1852, a close friend of Gogol's, Ekaterina Mikhailovna Khomyakova, died in Moscow. This death, caused by a serious illness, so impressed the writer that when he came to the memorial 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 a severe depression, began to spend sleepless nights praying, refused food and, without saying a word, spent days only lying on his bed, not even bothering to take off his boots.

Modern researchers tend 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 in the alternation of two opposite phases of mood. Manic periods are accompanied by a very high spirits and irrepressible energy. But with the onset of the depressive phase, Gogol hit the opposite extreme - he lost motivation anything to do, suffered from thoughts that tormented him up to the complete disappearance of his appetite.

In the middle of the 19th century, this disease had not yet been described by anyone, so the doctors of that time did not connect the writer’s behavior with a mental disorder in any way, preferring to look for the cause in physical ailment. As a result, when by February Gogol's condition became extremely serious, the assembled council of the best doctors in Moscow treated him for anything, but not from 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. They let the writer bleed from his nose, put leeches on his face and doused him with cold water, although Gogol himself resisted the procedures as best he could. But by common efforts, holding his arms and legs, the doctors continued to treat him for a non-existent ailment.

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

What was said after

In 1839, while in Italy, Gogol fell ill with encephalitis, after which he began to experience prolonged fainting, turning into a lethargic sleep. Being in this state, Gogol could practically not show signs of life visible to an ordinary person - his pulse and breathing were barely noticeable, and there was no way to wake the sleeping person. These circumstances gave rise to a fairly common mental illness in Gogol - taphophobia, or the fear of being buried alive.

Photo of Gogol in Italy

History knows severalexamples when people plunged into a lethargic sleep were mistakenly recognized as dead and buried. Such a prospect frightened the writer so much that for 10 years he could not force 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 requested that he not be buried until there were obvious signs of decomposition of the body. It was the will of the writer that was never fulfilled - namely due to of this fact, stories became popular that Gogol was nevertheless buried alive.

This version began to be widely discussed only in the second half of the 20th century and is associated with the fact of the writer's reburial in 1931. Then the Soviet authorities wished to remake the Danilovsky Monastery, where the grave of the writer 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 opening the coffin, everyone saw how Gogol's head lay 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 being buried alive. But modern researchers do not take this version too seriously. And there are several strong arguments for that.

First of all , the same Lidin told some acquaintances a completely different version - supposedly Gogol's skull was not in the coffin at all, since the famous Moscow collector Alexei Bakhrushin dug it up before. This rumor also became very popular, although those who could confirm it were never found.

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 coffin lid eventually falls and begins to put pressure on the head, since it is located above the rest of the body. A change in the position of the head of the deceased, found after the exhumation of graves, is a fairly common phenomenon.

And finally third , even despite the erroneous diagnosis, there is no doubt about the professionalism of the doctors who treated Gogol. They really were one of the best doctors in the 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 it.

Death mask of Gogol

In addition, the next morning after his death, the death mask was removed from Gogol's face. This procedure is accompanied by the application of a 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 the rational arguments, you can be sure that rumors about the mysterious death of a genius will not disappear anywhere. And it's not just the need of society 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.