Translated by Isabel F. Hapgood.
This story is retold by Rudy Panko from Foma Grigorievich, the sexton of the Dikanka church. Rudy was in the middle of reading the story to the reader, when Foma interrupts and demands to tell it his way. His grandfather used to live in an old village not far from Dikanka that no longer exists. There lived a...More
Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol (1 April [O.S. 20 March] 1809 – 4 March [O.S. 21 February] 1852) was a Russian novelist, short story writer and playwright of Ukrainian origin.
Although Gogol was considered by his contemporaries to be one of the preeminent figures of the natural school of Russian literary realism, later critics have found in his work a fundamentally romantic sensibility, with strains of surrealism and the grotesque ("The Nose", "Viy", "The Overcoat", "Nevsky Prospekt").
According to Vissarion Belinsky and Nikolay Chernyshevsky, Gogol had a huge influence on Russian and world literature. Gogol's influence was acknowledged by Mikhail Bulgakov, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Ryūnosuke Akutagawa, Flannery O'Connor, Franz Kafka and others....More
Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol (1 April [O.S. 20 March] 1809 – 4 March [O.S. 21 February] 1852) was a Russian novelist, short story writer and playwright of Ukrainian origin.
Although Gogol was considered by his contemporaries to be one of the preeminent figures of the natural school of Russian literary realism, later critics have found in his work a fundamentally romantic sensibility, with strains of surrealism and the grotesque ("The Nose", "Viy", "The Overcoat", "Nevsky Prospekt").
According to Vissarion Belinsky and Nikolay Chernyshevsky, Gogol had a huge influence on Russian and world literature. Gogol's influence was acknowledged by Mikhail Bulgakov, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Ryūnosuke Akutagawa, Flannery O'Connor, Franz Kafka and others.
Book Summary
Translated by Isabel F. Hapgood.
This story is retold by Rudy Panko from Foma Grigorievich, the sexton of the Dikanka church. Rudy was in the middle of reading the story to the reader, when Foma interrupts and demands to tell it his way. His grandfather used to live in an old village not far from Dikanka that no longer exists. There lived a Cossack named Korzh, his daughter Pidorka, and his worker Petro. Petro and Pidorka fall in love, but Korzh catches them one day kissing and is about to whip Petro for this, but stops when his son Ivas pleads for his father not to beat the worker. Korzh instead takes him outside and tells him to never come to his home again, putting the lovers into despair. Petro wants to do whatever he can to get her, and meets up with Basavriuk, a local stranger who frequents the village and many believe to be the devil himself…