Nikolai Gogol

Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol was a Russian novelist, short story writer, and playwright of Ukrainian origin known for using the grotesque in works such as The Nose, Viy, The Overcoat, and Nevsky Prospekt. His early works, including Evenings on a Farm Near Dikanka, drew on his Ukrainian upbringing and folklore, while his later writing satirized political corruption in contemporary Russia in works such as The Government Inspector and Dead Souls, even as he enjoyed the patronage of Tsar Nicholas I. His other best known works include the novel Taras Bulba (1835) and the play Marriage (1842), and his deep influence on Russian, Ukrainian, and world literature was acknowledged by writers including Fyodor Dostoevsky, Franz Kafka, and Vladimir Nabokov.