The author of The Overcoat story: Who is Gogol?

Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol was born in the Mirgorod region of Ukraine in 1809. He spent his youth on his father's farm in the country. Gogol's father was also a writer. Since the works he wrote for the Ukrainian puppet theater were in Ukrainian, he was included in the category of Ukrainian writers.

Gogol began writing plays for the student theater during his high school years, and he also acted in some of these plays. However, he did not receive much respect there and did not have much contact with his schoolmates, who called him the mysterious squirt. In his letter to his mother, dated March 1, 1828, he says: “I am seen as stubborn at home, a loser here… In some circles, I am very quiet, dignified, and polite, in others sullen, absent-minded, rude… For some, I am clever, for others stupid.”

Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol (1 April 1809 – 4 March 1852) was a Russian novelist, short story writer and playwright of Ukrainian origin. Gogol was one of the first to use the technique of the grotesque, in works such as "The Nose", "Viy", "The Overcoat", and "Nevsky Prospekt". 

Moving to St Petersburg in 1828 with the intention of becoming a full-time writer, Gogol destroyed all copies and decided not to write poetry again, when his first work, a narrative poem, which he had published with his own money, was ridiculed by critics. When he returned to Russia in 1829, he first sought employment as an actor but then had to take up a job as a civil servant in the government office.

Evenings on a Farm Near Dikanka, published in two volumes in 1831-32, brought Gogol closer to the fame he sought. In the Dikanka stories, Gogol satirizes the beliefs, legends, and traditions of the Ukrainian region. Since legends and beliefs are kept in the foreground in the work, the subjects are largely developed on a fantasy-based basis. Gogol is like a genius child writer who reveals the huge fairy tale world in this work. Dikanka's stories brought Gogol great fame not only in Russia but also in other Slavic countries. In the story called Sorochinsk Fair in the book, we encounter many types from sweaters to gypsies, from merchants to priests. Therefore, we can think of the place where the event took place as a human fair.

His fame reached its peak with his storybook Tales of Mirgorod, published in 1835. The backdrop of the stories is again the Ukrainian region. But this time Gogol introduces the daily life of the Ukrainian people. Each of the stories has different characters. The Old Time Gentlemen in the book is a tragic and lyrical work. In the story, the old ranchers Afanasi Ivanovich and Pulheriya Ivanovna lead a very quiet, even monotonous life in their own corners. The greatest pleasures of these two elderly people who are very attached to each other are cooking and eating.

Stating that "Russia needs Moscow, and St Petersburg needs Russia", Gogol's Stories of Petersburg, published in 1835, are among his first works of maturity. In these stories, the lifestyles of people living in big cities, living conditions, and what these conditions bring to people are told. It would not be wrong to think that Gogol wrote the Stories of Petersburg under the influence of the impressions he had during his time as a civil servant, and for this reason, he chose his heroes from among the officers. Stories of St. Petersburg include Diary of a Madman, Overcoat, Portrait, Nose, Nevsky Boulevard, and Carriage.

In the Diary of a Madman, Gogol describes the tragic life of a junior officer who lost his mental balance because he could not stand the harsh living conditions. The story is written in a diary format in the first person. For this reason, the author found the opportunity to reflect the feelings of the hero very intensely, especially the irrational and funny thoughts arising from the patient's consciousness of the hero, who was taken to a mental hospital by being cut off from normal life, and his tragic life in the mental hospital was combined with extraordinary power. Thus, Gogol presented a successful example of the tragic comedy style.

The Story of the Nose is a rather interesting work of Gogol. The second story in which the passion for rank is discussed in detail after the Notes of a Madman is Nose. Unlike Notes of a Madman, here the theme of rank is handled in a hilarious way.

The Overcoat is one of Gogol's greatest stories. In this story, too, Gogol deals with the theme of the poor little man. “We all came out of Gogol's Overcoat,” says Dostoyevsky, because according to him, this work opened the door to a whole new era in Russian Literature, paving the way for those who followed it. The story is pathetic, but Gogol's pen stubbornly makes the reader laugh. Sometimes Gogol approaches Akaky Akakievich with sympathy and pity. Sometimes he ridicules his hero in a way that can be called violent.

The Carriage is one of Gogol's most entertaining stories. In this story, the author introduces the life of Russian soldiers. The carriage is a typical Gogol story. As always, there are heroes who have weaknesses: the flamboyant General, Chertokutsky, who has also put into his character the habit of exaggerating his pretentiousness, and the lazy mayor, who does things that don't work for anyone and sleeps from morning to night, from night to morning.

The Inspector comedy, which was published and staged in 1836, is a work that gives us detailed information about the life of both the capital and the provincial civil servants of Tsarist Russia.

Gogol began writing Dead Souls in 1839. This novel, the first volume of which was published in 1842, is the culmination of the author's maturity period. In Dead Souls, Gogol combined the tradition of the travel novel with the cunningly plotted adventure novel tradition. As it is known, it is possible to see the combination of these two traditions in Cervantes' work called Don Quixote. It is known that in his letters to Pushkin, Gogol mentioned Cervantes several times. The subject of the novel was given to Gogol by Pushkin, the greatest poet of the 19th century. Pushkin, who initially intended to write the novel himself, sensed that this subject would be a superior work in the hands of a genius writer like Gogol, and left it to him to write Dead Souls. It is said that a similar event described in the novel took place in an area close to Pushkin's farm. In the novel, people from all social segments of 19th-century Russia are included. Landowners, officials, peasants, and administrators, who are dealt with separately in each work, are brought together in this novel. However, the landowners were a little more prominent than the others.

In the 1840s, Gogol became increasingly conservative. With his closeness to religion, he focused on the teachings of conservative Orthodox theology. Convinced that writing fiction was a sin, and he began to fear for the safety of his immortal soul, he sought to create less dangerous literary works. Like The Inspector, he wrote articles emphasizing the religious aspect of his works. He burned the second volume of Dead Souls in 1852. He later said it was a mistake, a joke the devil made on him. Gogol's health was deteriorating. He always complained of stomach pains. But the real problem was mental health. Shortly after, he shut himself in his room, refused to eat, and died in agony on the verge of insanity on March 4, 1852, buried three days later according to religious rules.

Due to a settlement problem in the monastery where he was buried in 1931, his grave had to be transferred to another place. Rumors that the author was buried without his head increased day by day. Therefore, the grave is opened and the rumor that the author is lying on his side rather than on his back, and even that there are deep scratches on the cover of the coffin, turns into the form that the author was buried alive and tried to get out by sobering up in the coffin, and then died of a heart attack from fear.