For more than 150 years, many doctors, historians, analysts and other experts have been trying to understand how Gogol died, what caused him to be so painful, 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 writer's life
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“, however, at home 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 this time that the very story of Gogol’s death began, which exhausted him mentally and physically and made the last days of his life 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 because of such a mental disorder that he himself brought himself to complete exhaustion. In fact, everything was a little different, and several other circumstances caused the death of this writer; if you read into it in more detail, it tells that for the last 20 years of his life the author suffered from I mean, 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.
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 plunged into something that everyone took for death. The rumors are based on the fact that during exhumation, Nikolai’s body in the coffin was unnaturally curved, and upper part covers are 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 one more circumstance that made people believe for many years that the famous writer was buried alive, in a state 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 his chair, fell asleep over his manuscripts in constant anxiety and readiness to awaken. 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. The official date of Gogol's death is February 21, 1852 (old style), and the date of his burial is 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, the sister of his close friend, died. The poet experienced this person’s funeral service 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 for 20 years he had suffered from bipolar personality, 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, his mental illness began to worsen, 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. However, most doctors rejected this prescription - they began to treat non-existent meningitis...
Afterword
We briefly examined all the circumstances of the death of the 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.
It is known that Gogol was a very suspicious person. He was repeatedly examined by various medical luminaries: F. I. Inozemtsev, I. E. Dyadkovsky, P. Krukenberg, I. G. Kopp, K. G. Karus, I. L. Shenlein and others. Mythical diagnoses were made: “spastic colitis”, “catarrh of the intestines”, “damage to the nerves of the gastric region”, “nervous disease” and so on. Associate Professor of the Perm Medical Academy M. I. Davidov analyzed 439 documents while studying Gogol’s disease.
Mikhail Ivanovich, even during the writer’s lifetime there were rumors in Moscow that he was suffering from “madness.” Did he have schizophrenia, as some researchers claim?
No, Nikolai Vasilyevich did not have schizophrenia. But during the last 20 years of his life he suffered, in the language of modern medicine, from manic-depressive psychosis. At the same time, he was never examined by a psychiatrist, and doctors had no idea that he had a mental illness, although close friends suspected it. The writer had periods of unusually cheerful mood, so-called hypomania. They were replaced by attacks of severe melancholy and apathy - depression.
Mental illness occurred while masquerading as various somatic (physical) illnesses. The patient was examined by leading medical luminaries of Russia and Europe: F. I. Inozemtsev, I. E. Dyadkovsky, P. Krukkenberg, I. G. Kopp, K. G. Karus, I. L. Shenlein and others. Mythical diagnoses were made: “spastic colitis”, “catarrh of the intestines”, “damage to the nerves of the gastric region”, “nervous disease” and so on. Naturally, the treatment of these imaginary diseases had no effect.
To this day, many people think that Gogol died truly horribly. He allegedly fell into a lethargic sleep, which was mistaken by those around him for death. And he was buried alive. And then he died from lack of oxygen in the grave.
These are nothing more than rumors that have nothing to do with reality. But they regularly appear on the pages of newspapers and magazines. Nikolai Vasilyevich himself is partly to blame for the emergence of these rumors. During his life, he suffered from taphephobia - the fear of being buried alive, since since 1839, after suffering from malarial encephalitis, he was prone to fainting followed by prolonged sleep. And he was pathologically afraid that during such a state he might be mistaken for dead.
For more than 10 years he did not go to bed. At night he dozed off, sitting or reclining in a chair or on the sofa. It is no coincidence that in “Selected Passages from Correspondence with Friends” he wrote: “I bequeath my body not to be buried until obvious signs of decomposition appear.”
Gogol was buried on February 24, 1852 in the graveyard of the Danilov Monastery in Moscow, and on May 31, 1931, the writer’s ashes were transferred to Novodevichy Cemetery.
In the periodical press there are statements that during the exhumation it seemed to be discovered that the lining of the coffin seemed to be all scratched and torn. The writer's body is unnaturally twisted. This is the basis for the version that Gogol died already in the coffin.
To understand its inconsistency, it is enough to think about the following fact. The exhumation took place almost 80 years after the burial. At such a time, only bone structures that are not connected to each other remain from the body. And the coffin and upholstery change so much that it is completely impossible to determine any “scratching from the inside.”
There is also such a point of view. Gogol committed suicide by taking mercury poison shortly before his death...
Yes, indeed, some literary scholars believe that approximately two weeks before his death, Nikolai Vasilyevich took a calomel pill. And since the writer was starving, it was not removed from the stomach and acted like a strong mercury poison, causing fatal poisoning.
But for an Orthodox, deeply religious person like Gogol, any attempt at suicide was terrible sin. In addition, one pill of calomel, a common mercury-containing medicine of that time, could not cause harm. The assumption that in a fasting person drugs remain in the stomach for a long time is erroneous. Even during fasting, drugs, under the influence of contraction of the walls of the stomach and intestines, move through the digestive canal, changing under the influence of gastric and intestinal juices. Finally, the patient had no symptoms of mercury poisoning.
Journalist Belysheva put forward a hypothesis that the writer died from the abdominal type, an outbreak of which occurred in 1852 in Moscow. It was from typhus that Ekaterina Khomyakova died, whom Gogol visited several times during her illness.
The possibility of typhoid fever in Gogol was discussed at a council held on February 20 with the participation of six famous Moscow doctors: professors A. I. Over, A. E. Evenius, I. V. Varvinsky, S. I. Klimenkov, doctors K. I. Sokologorsky and A. T. Tarasenkova. The diagnosis was categorically rejected, because Nikolai Vasilyevich really had no signs of this disease.
What conclusion did the council come to?
The writer’s attending physician A.I. Over and Professor S.I. Klimenkov insisted on the diagnosis of “meningitis” (inflammation of the meninges). This opinion was joined by other participants in the consultation, with the exception of the late Varvinsky, who diagnosed “gastroenteritis due to exhaustion.” However, the writer had no objective symptoms of meningitis: no fever, no vomiting, no tension in the neck muscles... The conclusion of the consultation turned out to be erroneous.
By that time, the writer’s condition was already serious. The pronounced exhaustion and dehydration of the body was striking. He was in a state of so-called depressive stupor. He was lying on the bed in his robe and boots. Turning his face to the wall, not talking to anyone, immersed in himself, silently waiting for death. With sunken cheeks, sunken eyes, dull gaze, weak, accelerated pulse...
What was the cause of such a serious condition?
Exacerbation of his mental illness. A psychotraumatic situation - the sudden death of Khomyakova at the end of January - caused another depression. The most severe melancholy and despondency took possession of Gogol. An acute reluctance to live arose, characteristic of this mental illness. Gogol had something similar in 1840, 1843, 1845. But then he was lucky. The state of depression spontaneously passed.
From the beginning of February 1852, Nikolai Vasilyevich almost completely deprived himself of food. Severely limited sleep. Refused to take medications. I burned the almost finished second volume of Dead Souls. He began to retire, wishing and at the same time fearfully expecting death. He firmly believed in the afterlife. Therefore, in order not to end up in hell, he exhausted himself with prayers all night long, kneeling in front of the images. Lent started 10 days earlier than expected church calendar. Essentially, it was not fasting, but complete hunger, which lasted three weeks until the writer’s death.
Science says you can survive 40 days without food.
This period is hardly unconditionally fair for healthy, strong people. Gogol was a physically weak, sick person. After previously suffering from malarial encephalitis, he suffered from bulimia - a pathologically increased appetite. I ate a lot, mostly hearty meat dishes, but due to metabolic disorders in the body I did not gain any weight. Until 1852, he practically did not observe fasts. And here, in addition to fasting, I sharply limited myself in liquids. Which, together with food deprivation, led to the development of severe nutritional dystrophy.
How was Gogol treated?
According to an incorrect diagnosis. Immediately after the end of the consultation, from 15:00 on February 20, Doctor Klimenkov began treating “meningitis” with those imperfect methods that were used in the 19th century. The patient was forcibly placed in a hot bath, and ice water was poured over his head. After this procedure, the writer felt chills, but he was kept without clothes. They performed bloodletting and placed 8 leeches on the patient’s nose to increase nosebleeds. The treatment of the patient was cruel. They shouted at him rudely. Gogol tried to resist the procedures, but his hands were wringed forcefully, causing pain...
The patient's condition not only did not improve, but became critical. At night he fell into unconsciousness. And at 8 o’clock in the morning on February 21, in his sleep, the writer’s breathing and blood circulation stopped. Medical workers wasn't nearby. There was a nurse on duty.
The participants in the consultation that took place the day before began to gather at 10 o’clock and instead of the patient they found the body of the writer, from whose face the sculptor Ramazanov had removed death mask. The doctors clearly did not expect death to occur so quickly.
What caused it?
Acute cardiovascular failure caused by bloodletting and shock temperature effects on a patient suffering from severe nutritional dystrophy. (Such patients tolerate bleeding very poorly, often not at all. A sharp change in heat and cold also weakens cardiac activity). Dystrophy arose due to prolonged starvation. And it was due to the depressive phase of manic-depressive psychosis. This creates a whole chain of factors.
Did the doctors openly do harm?
They made a mistake in good faith, making an incorrect diagnosis and prescribing irrational treatment that weakened the patient.
Could the writer be saved?
Force-feeding highly nutritious foods, drinking plenty of fluids, subcutaneous infusions salt solutions. If this had been done, his life would certainly have been spared. By the way, the youngest participant in the consultation, Dr. A. T. Tarasenkov, was convinced of the need for force feeding. But for some reason he did not insist on this and only passively observed the incorrect actions of Klimenkov and Over, later cruelly condemning them in his memoirs.
Now such patients are necessarily hospitalized in a psychiatric hospital. Force-fed highly nutritious formulas through a gastric tube. Saline solutions are injected subcutaneously. They also prescribe antidepressants, which did not yet exist in Gogol’s time.
The tragedy of Nikolai Vasilyevich was that his mental illness was never recognized during his lifetime.
Letter from Nikolai Ramazanov about the death of Gogol
“I bow to Nestor Vasilyevich and convey extremely sad news...
This afternoon, after lunch, I lay down on the sofa to read, when suddenly the bell rang and my servant Terenty announced that Mr. Aksakov and someone else had arrived and were asking to take off Gogol’s mask. This accident struck me so much that for a long time I could not come to my senses. Although Ostrovsky was with me yesterday and said that Gogol was seriously ill, no one expected such a denouement. At that moment I got ready, taking with me my molder Baranov, and went to Talyzin’s house, on Nikitsky Boulevard, where Nikolai Vasilyevich lived with Count Tolstoy. The first thing I encountered was a coffin roof of crimson velvet /.../ In the room on the lower floor I found the remains of someone taken by death so early.
In a minute the samovar boiled, the alabaster was diluted and Gogol’s face was covered with it. When I felt the crust of the alabaster with my palm to see if it was warm enough and strong enough, I involuntarily remembered the will (in letters to friends), where Gogol says not to bury his body until all signs of decomposition appear in the body. After removing the mask, one could be completely convinced that Gogol’s fears were in vain; he will not come to life, this is not lethargy, but an eternal sleepless dream /.../
While leaving Gogol's body, I came across two legless beggars at the porch who were standing on crutches in the snow. I gave it to them and thought: these legless poor things live, but Gogol is no longer there!”
Famous literary critic, editor-in-chief academic full meeting works by N.V. Gogol, RSUH professor Yuri MANN commented on this document.
When and under what circumstances did this letter become known?
It was first published in the collection of M.G. Danilevsky, published in 1893 in Kharkov. The letter was not given in full, without indicating the addressee, and therefore turned out to be outside the attention of researchers who studied the circumstances of Gogol’s death. About two years ago I worked in the manuscript department of the Russian National Library (formerly the Saltykov-Shchedrin library), fund 236, storage unit 195, sheets 1-2, where I collected materials for the second volume of Gogol’s biography. (The first volume - "Through the Laughter Visible to the World..." The Life of N.V. Gogol. 1809-1835." - was published in 1994.) Among others, I discovered this document.
Why were you silent for so long?
All this time I have been working on a book where the letter will be published in full. I was forced to provide fragments of the letter for publication by the fact that by a recent sad date, the version that Gogol was buried alive again began to circulate on the pages of newspapers.
What exactly in this letter indicates that Gogol was not buried alive?
Let's start with the facts. Gogol was treated best doctors of that time. Even if, from the point of view of modern medicine, not everything was done as it should be, after all, these were not charlatans, not idiots, and, of course, they could distinguish the dead from the living. In addition, Gogol himself warned the doctors accordingly, or rather, his will, which said: “Being in the full presence of memory and common sense, I express here my last will. I bequeath my body not to be buried until obvious signs of decomposition appear "
But there is nothing in the letter about these signs...
And it couldn't be. Gogol died at 8 o'clock in the morning, Ramazanov appeared immediately after lunch. He was a wonderful sculptor, knew Gogol personally and, of course, paid all attention to the task assigned to him. Removing a mask from a living person is impossible. Ramazanov became convinced that Gogol’s fears were in vain, and with the greatest regret stated that this was an eternal dream. The reliability of his conclusion is increased by the fact that attention was directed accordingly, that is, Gogol’s testament. Hence the categorical conclusion.
Why did Gogol’s head turn out to be turned?
It happens that the lid of a coffin shifts under pressure. At the same time, she touches the skull, and it turns.
And yet the version that Gogol was buried alive is circulating...
The reason for this is life circumstances, character, psychological appearance. Sergei Timofeevich Aksakov said that Gogol’s nerves were upside down. Everything could be expected from him. We must also take into account that two secrets were involuntarily combined: " Dead souls"were supposed to reveal the secret of Russian life, the destiny of the Russian people. When Gogol died, Turgenev said that some secret was hidden in this death. As often happens, the high mystery of Gogol's life and work was relegated to the level of a cheap fictional move and melodramatic effect , which always fits mass culture.
"There is nothing more solemn than death"
The death of Ekaterina Mikhailovna Khomyakova, which followed a short illness on January 26, 1852, had a depressing effect on Gogol. The morning after the first memorial service, he told Khomyakov: “It’s all over for me!” Then, according to the testimony of Stepan Petrovich Shevyrev, Gogol’s friend and executor, he uttered other words in front of the deceased’s coffin: “Nothing can be more solemn than death. Life would not be so beautiful if there were no death.”
Ekaterina Mikhailovna was the sister of one of Gogol’s closest friends, the poet Nikolai Yazykov. She died at thirty-five years of age, leaving seven children. This death resonated so heavily in Gogol’s soul that he did not find the strength to go to the funeral.
Ekaterina Mikhailovna Khomyakova came from an old family of Simbirsk nobles, the Yazykovs. Left without a father at an early age, she lived with her mother, who led a secluded life. Sergei Nilus in the book “Great in Small” says that Ekaterina Mikhailovna in early youth Nikolai Aleksandrovich Motovilov (a servant of the Mother of God and the Seraphim, as he later called himself) was carried away. When asked about her by the Monk Seraphim, the Sarov wonderworker, Motovilov replied: “Although she is not a beauty in the full sense of the word, she is very pretty. But most of all, what seduces me about her is something gracious, divine that shines through in her face.” And further, when questioned by the elder, Motovilov said: “Her father, Mikhail Petrovich Yazykov, left her an orphan early, five or six years old, and she grew up in solitude with her sick mother, Ekaterina Alexandrovna, as in a monastery - she always read morning and evening prayers to her. , and since her mother was very religious and pious, there were often prayer services and all-night vigils at her bedside. Having been raised for more than ten years under such a God-loving mother, she herself became like a monastery. That’s what I liked most about her. I especially like it."
The hope of seeing Ekaterina Mikhailovna as his wife did not leave Motovilov until May 1832, when he proposed (despite the prediction of the Monk Seraphim that he would marry a peasant woman) and received a final refusal.
In 1836, Ekaterina Mikhailovna married Alexei Stepanovich Khomyakov and joined his circle of friends. Among them was Gogol, who soon became especially friendly with her. The publisher of the Russian Archive, Pyotr Ivanovich Bartenev, who met him at the Khomyakovs more than once, testifies that “for the most part, he went away to talk with Ekaterina Mikhailovna, whose virtues he incredibly appreciated.” Alexei Stepanovich’s daughter Maria, from her father’s words, reported that Gogol, who did not like to talk much about his stay in the Holy Land, only told Ekaterina Mikhailovna what he felt there.
It will hardly ever be possible to fully understand why the death of Ekaterina Mikhailovna made such a strong impression on Gogol. There is no doubt that it was a spiritual shock. Something similar happened in Khomyakov’s life. We can judge this from the notes of Yuri Fedorovich Samarin, which priest Father Pavel Florensky calls a document of the greatest biographical importance: “This is almost the only evidence of Khomyakov’s inner life, moreover, of the most subtle movements of his soul, recorded by a friend and student and not intended at all for printing." Let us dwell on this evidence to understand what significance the death of his wife had for Khomyakov.
“Having learned about the death of Ekaterina Mikhailovna,” says Samarin, “I took a leave of absence and, having arrived in Moscow, hurried to see him (Khomyakov - V.V.). When I entered his office, he stood up, took me by both hands and For some time he could not utter a single word. Soon, however, he regained control of himself and told me in detail the entire course of the illness and treatment. The meaning of his story was that Ekaterina Mikhailovna died, despite all probabilities, due to the necessary confluence of circumstances: he himself clearly understood the root of the disease. and, knowing firmly what remedies were supposed to help, contrary to his usual determination, he doubted using them. Two doctors, not recognizing the disease, the signs of which, according to him, were obvious, fell into a grave mistake and, through incorrect treatment, produced a new disease, exhausting all their strength. organism. He saw all this and gave in to them. After listening to him, I noticed that everything seemed obvious to him now, because the unfortunate outcome of the illness justified his fears and at the same time erased from his memory all the other signs on which he himself probably based it. hope for recovery. Here he stopped me, taking me by the hand: “You didn’t understand me: I didn’t want to say at all that it was easy to save her. On the contrary, I see with crushing clarity that she had to die for me, precisely because there was no reasons to die. The blow was directed not at her, but at me. I know that she is better now than she was here, but I forgot myself in the fullness of my happiness; I neglected the second one - such that it cannot be forgotten." . His voice trembled and he lowered his head; after a few minutes he continued: “I want to tell you what happened to me. Several years ago, I came home from church after communion and, unfolding the Gospel of John, I attacked the last conversation of the Savior with the disciples after the Last Supper. As As I read, these words, from which a stream of boundless love flows with a living spring, came to me more and more, as if someone was pronouncing them next to me. When I reached the words: “You are my natural friends,” I stopped reading. and listened to them for a long time. They penetrated right through me. At this point I fell asleep. My soul felt unusually light and light. Some force lifted me higher and higher, streams of light flowed from above and I felt that a voice would soon be heard; Trembling penetrated all my veins. But in one minute everything stopped; I cannot tell you what happened to me, it was not a ghost, but some kind of dark, impenetrable curtain that suddenly fell in front of me and separated me from the region of light. I couldn’t make out what she was wearing; but at the same moment, like a whirlwind, all the idle moments of my life, all my fruitless conversations, my vain vanity, my laziness, my attachments to everyday squabbles flashed through my memory. What didn't happen here! Familiar faces with whom God knows why I got along and broke up, delicious dinners, cards, a game of billiards, many things that, apparently, I never think about and which, it seemed to me, I don’t value at all. All this merged together into some kind of ugly mass, fell on my chest and pressed me to the ground. I woke up with a feeling of crushing shame. For the first time I felt like a slave to the bustle of life from head to toe. Remember, in passages, it seems, by John Climacus these words: “Blessed is he who has seen an angel; a hundred times more blessed is he who has seen himself” (More precisely, not from St. John Climacus, but from Saint Isaac the Syrian: “Whoever has been deemed worthy to see himself, he is better than the one who is worthy to see angels" (Abba Isaac the Syrian Words of Asceticism. Homily 41). For a long time I could not recover from this lesson, but then life took its toll. It was difficult not to lose myself in the completeness of the undisturbed happiness that I enjoyed. You cannot understand what this life together means. You are too young to appreciate her." Here he stopped and was silent for some time, then added: "On the eve of her death, when the doctors had already hung their heads and there was no hope of salvation left, I threw myself on my knees in front of the image in a state close to frenzy , and began not only to pray, but to ask her from God. We all repeat that prayer is omnipotent, but we ourselves do not know its power, because it rarely happens to pray with all our soul. I felt such a power of prayer that could melt everything that seemed like a solid and impassable obstacle: I felt that God's omnipotence, as if caused by me, was meeting my prayer and that the life of a wife could be given to me. At that moment the black curtain fell on me again, what happened to me the first time was repeated, and my powerless prayer fell to the ground! Now all the charm of life is lost for me. I can't enjoy life. All that remains is to fulfill my lesson. Now, thanks to God, I won’t need to remind myself of death; it will go with me inseparably until the end.”
“I wrote down,” continues Samarin, “this story from word to word, as it was preserved in my memory; but, having re-read it, I feel that I am not able to convey the calmly concentrated tone in which he spoke to me. His words produced I was deeply impressed precisely because in him alone it was impossible to assume a shadow of self-delusion. There was no person in the world for whom it was so disgusting and uncharacteristic to be carried away by his own sensations and to yield clarity of consciousness to nervous irritation. Inner life he was distinguished by sobriety - this was the predominant feature of his piety. He was even afraid of tenderness, knowing that a person is too inclined to take credit for every earthly feeling, every shed tear; and when tenderness came over him, he deliberately doused himself with a stream of cold mockery, so as not to allow his soul to evaporate in fruitless impulses and to direct all its strength back to business. That everything that he told me really happened to him, that in those two minutes of his life his self-knowledge was illuminated by a revelation from above - I am as sure of this as I am of the fact that he was sitting opposite me, that he, and not someone else, the other spoke to me.
His entire subsequent life is explained by this story. The death of Ekaterina Mikhailovna produced a decisive turning point in her. Even those who did not know him very closely could notice that from that moment on his ability to get carried away by anything that was not directly related to his calling had cooled. He no longer gave himself free rein in anything. Apparently he retained his former cheerfulness and sociability, but the memory of his wife and the thought of death did not leave him. His life was divided into two. During the day he worked, read, talked, minded his own business, and gave himself to everyone who cared about him. But when night came and everything around him settled down and became silent, another time began for him. Once I lived with him in Ivanovsky. Several guests came to see him, so all the rooms were occupied and he moved my bed to his place. After dinner, after long conversations, enlivened by his inexhaustible gaiety, we lay down, extinguished the candles, and I fell asleep. Long after midnight I woke up from some talking in the room. The morning dawn barely illuminated it. Without moving or uttering a voice, I began to peer and listen. He was kneeling in front of his traveling icon, his hands were folded in a cross on the chair cushion, his head was resting on his hands. I could hear suppressed sobs. This continued until the morning. Of course, I pretended to be asleep. The next day he came out to us cheerful, vigorous, with his usual good-natured laugh. From the person who accompanied him everywhere, I heard that this was repeated almost every night..."
Memoirists noted that in the death of Ekaterina Mikhailovna Gogol saw, as it were, some kind of harbinger for himself. “The death of my wife and my grief greatly shocked him,” Khomyakov recalled, “he said that in it many people, whom he loved with all his soul, die again for him, especially N.M. Yazykov.”
After the death of Ekaterina Mikhailovna, Gogol constantly prayed. “Meanwhile, as we found out later,” Shevyrev said, “he spent most of his nights in prayer, without sleep.” According to Gogol's first biographer, Panteleimon Kulish, "during the entire fasting period and before that - perhaps from the day of Mrs. Khomyakova's death - he spent most of the nights without sleep, in prayer."
Shortly before his death, Gogol wrote on a separate piece of paper in large, childish handwriting: “What should I do to gratefully, gratefully and forever remember in my heart the lesson I have learned? And scary story All the events of the Gospels..." Biographers are wondering what this entry could mean. "What these words referred to," Shevyrev noted, "remained a mystery." Samarin argued that they point to some kind of revelation Gogol received from above. Who knows, Are we talking here about a lesson akin to the one Khomyakov received?..
And one more noteworthy fact. Gogol, while abroad in 1847, had the imprudence to enter into correspondence with the fanatic and fanatic priest Matvey Konstantinovsky. The messages of Father Matvey had a devastating effect on Gogol. “But it was nothing compared to the living word. A seasoned speaker, Matvey was all the more carried away the more obvious the impression on the listener, and he became the more merciless in his denunciation, the more merciless the victim turned out to be,” writes a friend of his writer’s youth, A.P. Chekhov's novelist I. Leontyev, a big admirer of Gogol's talent.The arrival of Father Matvey in Moscow at the end of January 1852 had the most fatal consequences for Gogol. Lonely, tormented by internal contradictions, suppressed by creative dissatisfaction while working on the second volume of Dead Souls, Gogol found himself completely unprotected from the sinister influence. Doctor Tarasenkov said that the priest, “directly and sharply, without weighing the personality and position of the person being taught, with merciless severity and harshness preached” to Gogol, “how nothing earthly should seduce us... why do we need strength?..” Conversations of this The clergyman was shocked so much that one day, unable to control himself, he interrupted his speech and said to him: “Enough, leave me alone, I can’t listen any longer, it’s too scary.” “It’s really difficult to imagine a scene of more striking contrast,” writes I. Shcheglov. - Gogol, the great Gogol, a merciless satirist, a brilliant seer of the human heart - pale, shocked, almost frozen with horror in his chair... and in front of whom? Before the homely and semi-ignorant, frenzied priest, frightening his sick imagination... The end of the tragedy is known.”
Gogol was buried at the expense of the university.
The famous engraver Jordan informed Gogol's friend, artist A.A. Ivanov: “The flow of people for two days was incredible... for two days there was no passage along Nikitskaya Street. He lay in a frock coat... with a laurel wreath on his head, which was removed when the coffin was closed... Everyone longed to enrich themselves with this monument.” The writer was buried in the cemetery of the St. Daniel Monastery. A monument was erected at the grave in the form of a polished trapezoid, on which were the words from the prophet Jeremiah: “I will laugh at my bitter words,” and next to the trapezoid there was a stone with a cross - Golgotha. After Gogol's death, it was forbidden to draw attention to his name. Even attempts by relatives to complete the printing of his Collected Works, begun by the author himself, met with serious resistance from literary censorship.
“In the mid-eighties,” Yuri Alekhine told me, “I, as the eldest researcher State literary museum, were assigned the responsible task of dealing with burials that had suffered from the actions of cemetery vandals, who repainted monuments and interrupted inscriptions on tombstones. And since I was dealing with issues related to the burials of literary figures, I decided to tackle the solution to the reburial of the ashes of Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol.
The legend of the mysterious, mystical death of Gogol has been known to many for a long time. The writer himself wrote in his will: “Being in the full presence of memory and common sense, I express here my last will. I bequeath my body not to be buried until obvious signs of decomposition appear. I mention this because during the illness itself, moments of vital numbness came over me: my heart and pulse stopped beating.” So, it was Gogol himself who initially gave rise to the legend of Gogol’s mysterious death.
I was able to meet and talk with many people who lived near the St. Daniel's Monastery at that time and who witnessed the transfer of Nikolai Gogol's ashes on May 31, 1931 to the cemetery of the Novodevichy Convent.
At the Gorky Literary Institute, where I studied, a prose seminar was taught by Vladimir Germanovich Lidin (Gomberg), who was present at the reburial.
Lidin was a very talkative person. He said that one day in May the director of the cemetery, a former Komsomol worker, called him and offered to be present when Gogol’s ashes were transferred. About thirty people gathered for this action, among whom were Yuri Olesha, Mikhail Svetlov, Vsevolod Ivanov, Lidin... They removed the stone and calvary from the grave. And they started digging. There was someone's skull on top. The examination established that this skull did not belong to the great writer. Then we came across a brick crypt. They dug for a long time, but under the monument on the axis, where the coffin should have been, it was not there. They dug for a very long time and only towards the end of the day they discovered a burial in a side branch of the crypt. The boards near the coffin were rotten, they pulled him out.
The wife who was present famous architect Baranovsky Maria Yurievna cried bitterly. And one of the NKVD members said to his colleague: “Look, how the widow is killing herself!” When they opened the coffin, they saw - oh horror! - that the skull of the great writer is turned to one side. And many became convinced of Nikolai Vasilyevich’s well-founded fear. And a rumor immediately spread throughout Moscow that Gogol was turning over in his grave.
Apart from turning his head, there was nothing to indicate that he had turned over. The skeleton was lying on its back. Part of the tobacco-colored frock coat in which he was buried has survived. And the knuckles of the toes were “pushed” into the boots. The grit of the boots rotted, and they, of course, opened up, revealing the limbs of the feet. And so, after the coffin was opened, an orgy of plundering of the remains took place. Lidin himself said that he stole a well-preserved piece of a tobacco-colored vest from Gogol’s chest.
“I edged the first edition of Dead Souls in metal and inserted this matter there,” said Vladimir Germanovich. Tamara Vladimirovna Ivanova, now deceased, said that when her husband, famous writer Vsevolod Ivanov, came from this burial, he was terribly indignant:
“How can writers be considered highly spiritual people after everything that has happened?!” In addition to a piece of cloth, they stole from the coffin a rib, a tibia and, according to Lidin, one boot. It’s likely something else.”
Answering my question about what happened to the ashes remaining in the coffin, Yuri Vladimirovich said: “The coffin was transported to the cemetery of the Novodevichy Convent and buried in a new grave. The calvary monument was also moved there. Subsequently, a pillar was erected on the grave, on which stands a monument to Gogol by the sculptor Tomsky, and the calvary was thrown away.
Later, this calvary and part of the granite stone were found by the widow of Mikhail Bulgakov, Elena Sergeevna, who installed them on the grave of her husband, as the successor to the tragedies of the author of Dead Souls.
So, after the coffin was transported, mystical things began. Three days pass, as Lidin himself says, the director of the cemetery calls him and says: “Vladimir Germanovich, for some reason I can’t sleep. For the third night in a row, Gogol comes to me and says: “Give me the rib back!” Lidin immediately called another kidnapper, a writer, who stole the tibia. He is also perplexed: “I had it in my coat pocket. I forgot to take it out in the evening, but in the morning I grabbed it - and it was no longer there, it had disappeared.”
And Lidin, smiling like an old man, said: “Well, what can you do, we agreed, collected some of what was taken, and under the cover of darkness we made our way to Gogol’s grave at the Novodevichy cemetery, dug a small hole and lowered it there.” And he, by the way, said that if anyone else decides to disturb the ashes of Nikolai Vasilyevich, he will first stumble upon a bone and a boot...
As you know, in the summer of 1845, being in a state of extreme mental crisis, Gogol burned the manuscript of the second volume of Dead Souls. The widely circulated official version states that Gogol burned the finished white manuscript of the volume for the second time on the night of February 11-12, 1852. But other, often contradictory, versions exist and deserve attention: other documents or some individual chapters of the work were burned, and that the destruction occurred immediately before death, that is, on February 21. And finally, according to some researchers of Gogol’s work, the manuscript of the second volume of “Dead Souls” was not burned at all, but was appropriated by people from Gogol’s circle. All these versions, naturally, require the most thorough investigation and analysis.
And this, perhaps, will allow us to come closer to understanding the last secret life of N.V. Gogol.
©
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"Encyclopedia of Death. Chronicles of Charon"
Part 2: Dictionary of Selected 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 for the last year and a half of his life, Gogol was tormented by the fear of death. This fear multiplied when Ekaterina Khomyakova, sister of the poet N.M. Yazykov, with whom Gogol was friends, died on January 26, 1852. (She died of typhoid fever, while she was pregnant.) Doctor A. T. Tarasenkov says that “her death did not strike her husband and relatives as much as it struck Gogol... He, perhaps, saw death face to face for the first time here ..." A.P. Annenkov also writes about the same thing: "... the contemplation of death was unbearable for him." At the funeral 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 took such hold of 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 made up of notes from eyewitnesses (including doctors). Doctor Tarasenkov remembers last day Gogol:
"...When I returned three hours after leaving, at six o'clock in the evening, the bath had already been made, six large leeches were hanging from his nostrils; a lotion was applied to his head. They say that when they undressed him and put him in the bath, he moaned heavily, shouted, said that they were doing this in vain; after they put him in bed again without underwear, he said: “Cover your shoulder, cover your back!”, and when the leeches were placed, he repeated: “No need!”; , he kept repeating: “Remove the leeches, lift them (from your mouth)!” and tried to get them with his hand. They hung with me for a long time, they held his hand with force so that he would not touch them. Over and Klimenkov arrived at seven o’clock. They ordered him to maintain the bleeding longer, put mustard plasters on his limbs, then a patch on the back of his head, ice on his head, and a decoction of marshmallow root with cherry laurel water;
Klimenkov pestered him, kneaded him, grumbled, poured some caustic alcohol on his head, and when the patient groaned from this, the doctor asked: “What hurts, Nikolai Vasilyevich? Eh? Speak up!” But he moaned and did not answer. “They left, I stayed all evening until twelve o’clock and carefully watched what was happening. The pulse quickly and clearly dropped, became even faster and weaker, breathing, already difficult in the morning, became even heavier; the patient was no longer able to turn around on his own, he lay quietly on one side and was calm when nothing was done to him...
Late in the evening he began to forget himself and lose his memory. "Let's keg!" - he said one day, indicating that he was thirsty. They gave him the same glass of broth, but he could no longer raise his head and hold the glass... Even later, from time to time he muttered something indistinctly, as if in a dream, or repeated several times: “Come on, come on! Well, what?” same!" At about eleven o'clock he shouted loudly: “The stairs, quickly, give me the stairs!” It seemed that he wanted to get up. He was lifted out of bed and sat on a chair. At this time he was already so weak that his head could not rest on his neck and fell automatically, 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 he was put to bed again, 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 returned soon, but became barely noticeable. After this fainting spell, Gogol no longer asked to drink or turn around; constantly lay on his back with his eyes closed, without uttering a word. At twelve o'clock in the morning my legs began to get cold. I put out a jug of hot water and began to let him swallow the broth more often, and this apparently revived him; however, soon the breathing became hoarse and even more difficult; the skin was covered with cold sweat, the eyes turned blue, the face was drawn, like that of a dead man. I left the sufferer in this position...
They told me that Klimenkov arrived soon after me, stayed with him for several hours at night: gave him calomel, covered his whole body with hot bread; at the same time the moaning and piercing scream resumed again. All this probably helped him die faster."
Gogol's death occurred 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 Vasilyevich died, he was still unconscious, a little delirious, apparently he did not suffer, he was quiet all night, he was just breathing heavily; by the morning his breathing became less and less frequent, 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 melancholy. In all likelihood, his general nutrition and his strength was strained by the malaria he suffered in Italy (almost in the fall of 1845). He died during an attack of periodic melancholy from exhaustion and acute anemia of the brain, caused both by the very form of the disease - the fasting that accompanied it and the rapid loss of nutrition and strength associated with it - and by improper debilitating treatment, especially bloodletting."
The rough prose of medical reports is contrasted with a remarkable psychological portrait of the dying Gogol, created by the critic I. Zolotussky.
“He did not come to the funeral (of E. Khomyakova), citing illness and nerve ailments. 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 who had departed from those whom he loved. “It was as if she brought them all to me in gratitude,” he told the Aksakovs, “I felt better.”
"The moment of death is terrible."
“Why is it scary?” they asked him, “just to be sure of God’s mercy towards a suffering person, and then it’s joyful to think about death.” He replied:
“But you need to ask about this those who passed through this moment.”
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 really need to die,” he said to Khomyakov after this, “I’m already ready and I’ll die...” He no longer accepted almost anything from the hands of Semyon, who was constantly standing at his head (after the burning, Gogol moved to the bed and did not get up again), only warm red wine diluted with water.
The concerned owner of the house convened a consultation; all the famous doctors then available in Moscow gathered at Gogol’s bedside. He lay turned to the wall, in a robe and boots, and looked at the icon leaning against the wall Mother of God. 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 heard shortly before his death. In this sense, he was like his father. He believed that he had to 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 his soul with this violence, this interference in the sacrament of care. It was a departure, not a suicide, a conscious, irrevocable departure... He could not live to simply live, to procrastinate and wait for old age. 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 torment before his death was the torment of a man who was not understood, who was again surrounded by surprised people who believed that he had gone crazy, that he was starving himself, that he was almost planning to commit suicide. They could not believe that the spirit guided them so much that its order was enough for the body to obey unquestioningly.
The doctors were at a loss about the diagnosis, some said that he had inflammation in the intestines, others said that he had typhus, others called it nervous fever, and others did not hide their suspicion of insanity. Actually, they no longer treated him like Gogol, but like a madman, and this was the natural conclusion of the misunderstanding that began since the time of The Inspector General. Doctors presented in in this case a crowd, an audience that did not do all this out of malice, but out of a tragic discrepancy between itself and the poet, who died with a clear mind and strong memory.
At the beginning of 1852, Gogol wrote to Vyazemsky: we must leave “a will behind ourselves to our offspring, which should also be dear to us and close to our hearts, just as children are close to the heart of their father (otherwise the connection between the present and the future is severed) ...” He thought about this connection, and his death - a strange, mysterious death - was this connection, for Gogol in it brought his quest to the end. If previously they accused him of hypocrisy, of hypocrisy, they called him Tartuffe, then there was no hypocrisy anymore. Gogol's rise was confirmed by this last act of his on earth."
Gogol was buried in the graveyard of the Danilov Monastery, but in 1931 the writer’s ashes were transferred to the Novodevichy cemetery. The reburial gave rise to the legend that Gogol died twice, and the second time truly horribly - underground, in the darkness and cramped coffin. During the exhumation, they discovered that the lining of the coffin was all torn from the inside! This means that Gogol may have been buried alive - in a state of lethargic sleep. This is exactly what he was afraid of all his life and warned more than once not to bury him hastily until they were convinced of the authenticity of his death! Alas! The warning didn't help.
“I am considered a mystery to everyone, no one can solve me completely” - N.V. Gogol
The mystery of Gogol's life and death causes numerous disputes among literary critics, historians, psychologists, doctors and scientists. Over time, like many of his characters, he himself became a semi-fantastic figure.
Gogol's staircase
As a child, little Gogol listened to his grandmother's stories about the staircase along which people's souls ascend to heaven. This image was deeply imprinted in the boy’s memory; Gogol carried it throughout his entire life. Staircases of various kinds appear on our pages every now and then. Gogol's works. Yes and last words The writer, according to eyewitnesses, shouted “Ladder, quickly give me the ladder!”
Sweet tooth
G Ogol had a sweet tooth. For example, he could, without outside help, eat a jar of jam, a mountain of gingerbread in one sitting and drink a whole samovar of tea... “He always had a supply of sweets and gingerbreads in his trouser pockets, he chewed without ceasing, even in classes during classes. “somewhere in a corner, away from everyone, and there he already ate his delicacy,” his gymnasium friend describes Gogol. This passion for sweets remained until the end of his days. In Gogol’s pockets one could always find a lot of all kinds of sweets: caramels, pretzels, crackers, half-eaten pies, lumps of sugar...
Another interesting feature was a passion for rolling bread balls. The poet and translator Nikolai Berg recalled: “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. When he was bored at dinner, he would again roll the balls and quietly throw them into the kvass or soup of those sitting next to him... One friend collected whole heaps of these balls and kept them reverently..."
What else did Gogol burn?
The first work to turn into ashes was a poem in the spirit of the German romantic school"Hans Kuchelgarten". The pseudonym V. Alov saved Gogol’s name from the criticism that fell, but the author himself took the failure very hard: he bought all the unsold copies of the book in stores and burned them. Until the end of his life, the writer never admitted to anyone that Alov was his pseudonym.
On the night of February 12, 1852, an event occurred, the circumstances of which still remain a mystery to biographers. Nikolai Gogol prayed until three o'clock, after which he took his briefcase, took out several papers from it, and ordered the rest to be thrown into the fire. Having crossed himself, he returned to bed and cried uncontrollably. It is believed that that night he burned the second volume of Dead Souls. However, later the manuscript of the second volume was found among his books. And what was burned in the fireplace is still unclear.
Is Gogol a homosexual?
The ascetic lifestyle that Gogol led and the writer’s excessive religiosity gave rise to many fables. The writer's contemporaries were surprised and frightened by such behavior. Of his things, he only had a couple of changes of underwear with him and kept it all in one suitcase... Quite unsociable, he rarely allowed himself the company of unfamiliar women, and lived his whole life as a virgin. Such isolation gave rise to the common myth about the writer’s homosexual inclinations. A similar assumption was put forward by the American Slavist, historian of Russian literature, Professor Semyon Karlinsky, who stated in his work “The Sexual Labyrinth of Nikolai Gogol” about the “oppressed homosexuality” of the writer, which involves “suppression of emotional attraction to members of the same sex” and “aversion to physical or emotional contact with women "
According to literary critic I.P. Zolotussky, Gogol was not indifferent to women, including A.M. Vilyegorskaya, to whom he proposed in 1840, but was refused. Vladimir Nabokov also objected to representatives of the psychoanalytic method. In his essay “Nikolai Gogol” he wrote: “The heightened sense of the nose eventually resulted in the story “The Nose” - truly a hymn to this organ. A Freudian could argue that in Gogol’s world turned inside out, human beings are placed upside down and therefore the role of the nose is obviously played by another organ, and vice versa,” but “it is better to completely forget about all Freudian nonsense” and much more. etc.
Was Gogol buried alive?
Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol died on February 21, 1852. And on February 24, 1852, he was interred in the cemetery at the Danilov Monastery. According to the will, no monument was erected to him - Golgotha rose above the grave. But 79 years later, the writer’s ashes were removed from the grave: by the Soviet government, the Danilov Monastery was transformed into a colony for juvenile delinquents, and the necropolis was subject to liquidation. It was decided to move only a few burials to the old cemetery of the Novodevichy Convent. Among these “lucky ones”, along with Yazykov, the Aksakovs and the Khomyakovs, was Gogol... The entire color of the Soviet intelligentsia was present at the reburial. Among them was the writer V. Lidin. It is to him that Gogol owes the emergence of numerous legends about himself.
One of the myths concerned the lethargic sleep of the writer. According to Lidin, when the coffin was pulled out of the ground and opened, those present were filled with bewilderment. In the coffin lay a skeleton with its skull turned to one side. No one found an explanation for this. I remembered the stories 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 they saw shocked those present. Did Gogol really have to endure the horror of such a death?
It is worth noting that this story was later subject to criticism. 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 people who wanted to say goodbye to the dear deceased forced me and my old man, who pointed out the traces of destruction, to hurry...” 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.
Was there a skull?
However, Lidin’s wild imagination was not limited to this episode. More followed scary story- it turns out that when the coffin was opened, the skeleton did not have a skull at all. Where could he have gone? This new invention of Lidin gave rise to new hypotheses. 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 suggested that it was then that the writer’s skull could have been stolen. It was suggested that he was stolen at the request of a fanatic of the Russian theater, merchant Alexei Alexandrovich Bakhrushin. It was rumored that he already had the skull of the great Russian actor Shchepkin...
Gogol's head and ghost train
They say that Gogol's head was decorated with Bakhrushin's silver laurel crown and placed in a glazed rosewood case, lined with black morocco on the inside. According to the same legend, the great-nephew of Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol is Yanovsky, lieutenant of the Russian imperial fleet Having learned about this, he threatened Bakhrushin and took his head. Allegedly, the young officer wanted to take the skull to Italy (to the country that Gogol considered his second homeland), but he could not complete this mission himself and entrusted it to an Italian captain. So the writer’s head ended up in Italy. But this is not the end of this incredible story. The captain's younger brother, a student at the University of Rome, went with a group of friends on a pleasure railway trip; deciding to play a prank on his friends by opening a box containing a skull in the Channel Tunnel. They say that the moment the lid was opened, the train disappeared... Legend has it that the ghost train did not disappear forever. Allegedly, he is sometimes seen somewhere in Italy...or in Zaporozhye...