Almas muertas es una obra maestra del siglo XIX de la literatura rusa, escrita por Nikolai Gogol y publicada en 1842. Gogol la definio como un poema epico en prosa. Tiene ciertas similitudes con El Quijote pues el protagonista Chichikov junto con su cochero y un criado emprenden un viaje en su troika por los amplios territorios de la vasta Rusia deteniendose en ciudades y aldeas con la intencion de comprar almas, almas muertas. En el Imperio ruso antes de la emancipacion de los siervos en 1861, los propietarios tenian derecho a poseer siervos para cultivar sus tierras. Los siervos eran para...

"The Nose" is a satirical short story by Nikolai Gogol written during his time living in St. Petersburg. During this time, Gogol's works were primarily focused on surrealism and the grotesque, with a romantic twist. Written between 1835 and 1836, "The Nose" tells the story of a St. Petersburg official whose nose leaves his face and develops a life of its own. "The Nose" was originally published in The Contemporary, a literary journal owned by Alexander Pushkin. The use of a nose as the main source of conflict in the story could have been due to Gogol's own experience with an oddly shaped...

"The Portrait" is the story of a young and penniless artist, Andrey Petrovich Chartkov, who stumbles upon a terrifyingly lifelike portrait in an art shop and is compelled to buy it. The painting is magical and offers him a dilemma to struggle to make his own way in the world on the basis of his own talents or to accept the assistance of the magic painting to guaranteed riches and fame. He chooses to become rich and famous, but when he comes upon a portrait from another artist which is "pure, faultless, beautiful as a bride" he comes to realize that he has made the wrong choice. Eventually, he...

Taras Bulba is a romanticized historical novella by Nikolai Gogol. It describes the life of an old Zaporozhian Cossack, Taras Bulba, and his two sons, Andriy and Ostap. The sons study at the Kiev Academy and then return home, whereupon the three men set out on a journey to the Zaporizhian Sich (located in what is now southern Ukraine), where they join other Cossacks and go to war against Poland.

An 1841 painting of Russian author Nikolai Gogol. Photograph: Bettmann/Corbis Sophia Martelli Sunday 23 October 2011 00.05 BST Share on LinkedIn Share on Google+ Shares 5 Comments 0 Save for later Pre-revolutionary Russian literature might not resound with comedy (War and Peace, Crime and Punishment, Eugene Onegin, anyone?) but this collection of "Russian comic stories" is not an oxymoron. Any story that starts: "Once upon a time there were two generals. They were both nitwits, and so, in no time at all, by a wave of some magic wand, they found themselves on a desert island," as Mikhail...

"Diary of a Madman" (1835, Zapiski sumasshedshevo) is a farcical short story by Nikolai Gogol. Along with "The Overcoat" and "The Nose," "Diary of a Madman" is considered to be one of Gogol's greatest short stories. The tale centers on the life of a minor civil servant during the repressive era of Nicholas I. Following the format of a diary, the story shows the descent of the protagonist, Poprishchin, into insanity. "Diary of a Madman," the only one of Gogol's works written in first person, follows diary-entry format.

Dead Souls is a novel by Nikolai Gogol, first published in 1842, and widely regarded as an exemplar of 19th-century Russian literature. The purpose of the novel was to demonstrate the flaws and faults of the Russian mentality and character. Gogol masterfully portrayed those defects through Pavel Ivanovich Chichikov (the main character) and the people whom he encounters in his endeavours. These people are typical of the Russian middle-class of the time. Gogol himself saw it as an "epic poem in prose," and within the book as a "novel in verse." Despite supposedly completing the trilogy's second...