Nikolaĭ Vasilʹevich Gogolʹ
1) Dead souls
Author
Language
English
Formats
Description
A stranger arrives in a Russian backwater community with a bizarre proposition for the local landowners: cash for their "dead souls," the serfs who have died in their service and for whom they must continue to pay taxes until the next census. The landowner receives a payment and a relief of his tax burden, and the stranger receives--what? Gogol's comic masterpiece offers a vast and satirical painting of the Russian panorama as it traces the path and...
Author
Language
English
Description
"For the last twenty years, George Saunders has been teaching a class on the Russian short story to his MFA students at Syracuse University. In A Swim in a Pond in the Rain, he shares a version of that class with us, offering some of what he and his students have discovered together over the years. Paired with iconic short stories by Chekhov, Turgenev, Tolstoy, and Gogol, the seven essays in this book are intended for anyone interested in how fiction...
12) Revizor
Author
Language
Russian
Formats
Description
Based upon a personal anecdote recounted to Gogol by the great Russian poet Pushkin, "The Inspector-General", also known as "The Government Inspector", is a satirical play first published in 1836. It is a comedy of errors that unstintingly portrays human greed and stupidity. The plot centers around the officials of a small provincial town in Russia, who have been informed that a dreaded inspector is soon to arrive. They mistakenly assume that the...
13) The overcoat
Publisher
Kanopy Streaming
Pub. Date
2014.
Language
Italian
Description
Based on the Nikolai Gogol story but set in modern-day Italy (1952), The overcoat is the story of a poor city hall clerk (Renato Rascel) whose only desire is to buy a new overcoat. The town Mayor (Giulio Stival) is planning a reception for some visiting VIPs in honor of a new, wasteful piece of construction. The clerk bungles an assignment for the reception and is fired. But when he stumbles into a bribery scheme concerning the architects, in order...
Author
Series
Publisher
Columbia University Press
Pub. Date
[2020]
Language
English
Description
"Nikolai Gogol's novel Dead Souls and play The Government Inspector revolutionized Russian literature and continue to entertain generations of readers around the world. Yet Gogol's peculiar genius comes through most powerfully in his short stories. By turns-or at once-funny, terrifying, and profound, the tales collected in The Nose and Other Stories are among the greatest achievements of world literature. These stories showcase Gogol's vivid, haunting...