Nikolai Gogol

Nikolai Gogol (1809–1852) was a Russian writer born in Ukraine. After failing as a civil servant and a teacher in Saint Petersburg, he won fame with Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka, tales of Ukrainian village life, and followed them with Mirgorod, which includes Taras Bulba, and the Petersburg stories "The Nose" and "The Overcoat." His comedy The Inspector-General (1836) and his novel Dead Souls (1842) made him the founder of Russian prose satire. He spent many years in Rome, fell into a deepening religious crisis, and shortly before his death burned the manuscript of the second part of Dead Souls.