How did the great writer Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol die?

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

On February 21 (March 4), 1852, the great Russian writer Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol passed away. He died at 42, suddenly, "burnt out" in just a few weeks. Later, his death was called terrifying, mysterious and even mystical.

Sopor

The most common version. The rumor about the allegedly terrible death of a writer buried alive turned out to be so tenacious that many still consider it an absolutely proven fact. And the poet Andrey Voznesenskyin 1972 he even immortalized this assumption in his poem "The Funeral of Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol."

You carried it alive throughout the country.

Gogol was in a lethargic dream.

Gogol thought in the coffin on his back:

“They stole an underwear from under a tailcoat.

It blows through the crack, but you can't get into it.

What is the torment of the Lord

before waking up in a coffin."

Open the coffin and freeze in the snow.

Gogol, hunched over, lies on his side.

Ingrown toenail broke through the lining of the boot.

In part, he created rumors about his burial alive, without knowing it … Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol. The fact is that the writer was susceptible to fainting and somnambulistic states. Therefore, the classic was very afraid that in one of the seizures he would be mistaken for dead and buried.

In his Testament, he wrote: “Being in the full presence of memory and common sense, here I am setting out my last will. I bequeath my body not to bury until there are clear signs of decay. I mention this because even during the illness itself they found moments of vital numbness on me, my heart and pulse stopped beating …"

It is known that 79 years after the death of the writer, the grave of Gogol was opened to transfer the remains from the necropolis of the closed Danilov Monastery to the Novodevichy cemetery. They say that his body was lying in a position unusual for a dead man - his head was turned to the side, and the coffin's upholstery was torn to shreds. These rumors gave rise to the deep-rooted belief that Nikolai Vasilyevich died a terrible death, in pitch darkness, underground.

This fact is almost unanimously denied by modern historians.

"During the exhumation, which was carried out under conditions of certain secrecy, only about 20 people gathered at Gogol's grave …" writes in his article "The Secret of Gogol's Death" Associate Professor of the Perm Medical Academy Mikhail Davidov … - The writer V. Lidin became essentially the only source of information about the exhumation of Gogol. At first, he told about the reburial to students of the Literary Institute and his acquaintances, later he left written memoirs. Lidin's stories were untrue and contradictory. It was he who argued that the writer's oak coffin was well preserved, the coffin upholstery was torn and scratched from the inside, a skeleton lay in the coffin, unnaturally twisted, with the skull turned to one side. So, with the light hand of Lidin, inexhaustible on inventions, the terrible legend that the writer was buried alive went for a walk in Moscow.

To understand the inconsistency of the lethargic dream version, it is enough to ponder the following fact: the exhumation was carried out 79 years after the burial! It is known that the decomposition of a body in a grave occurs incredibly quickly, and after only a few years only bone tissue remains from it, and the bones found no longer have close connections with each other. It is not clear how, after eight decades, they could establish some kind of "twisting of the body" … And what remains of the wooden coffin and the upholstery material after 79 years of being in the ground? They change so much (rot, become fragmented) that it is absolutely impossible to establish the fact of "scratching" the inner upholstery of the coffin."

And according to the recollections of the sculptor Ramazanov, who took off the writer's death mask, the posthumous changes and the beginning of the process of tissue decomposition were clearly visible on the deceased's face.

However, Gogol's version of lethargic sleep is still alive.

Suicide

In the last months of his life, Gogol experienced a severe mental crisis. The writer was shocked by the death of his close friend, Ekaterina Mikhailovna Khomyakovawho died suddenly of a rapidly developing disease at 35. The classic gave up writing, spent most of his time praying and fasting violently. Gogol was seized by the fear of death, the writer reported to his acquaintances that he heard voices telling him that he would soon die.

It was during that feverish period, when the writer was delirious, that he burned the manuscript of the second volume of Dead Souls. It is believed that he did this largely under the pressure of his confessor, archpriest Matthew Konstantinovsky, who was the only person who read this unpublished work and advised to destroy the records. The priest had a tremendous influence on Gogol in the last weeks of his life. Considering the writer not righteous enough, the priest demanded that Nikolai Vasilyevich "renounce Pushkin" as a "sinner and pagan." He urged Gogol to constantly pray and abstain from food, and also mercilessly intimidated him with the reprisals awaiting him for his sins "in the other world."

The writer's depression intensified. He grew weaker, slept very little and ate practically nothing. In fact, the writer voluntarily squeezed himself out of the light.

According to the doctor's testimony Tarasenkova, observing Nikolai Vasilyevich, in the last period of his life he "at once" aged "at once" in a month. By February 10, Gogol's strength had already left so much that he could no longer leave the house. On February 20, the writer fell into a feverish state, did not recognize anyone and kept whispering some kind of prayer. A council of doctors gathered at the patient's bedside prescribes "compulsory treatment" for him. For example, bloodletting with leeches. Despite all efforts, at 8 am on February 21, he was gone.

However, most researchers do not support the version that the writer deliberately "starved himself to death", that is, in fact committed suicide. And for a lethal outcome, an adult needs not to eat for 40 days. Gogol, on the other hand, refused food for about three weeks, and even then he occasionally allowed himself to eat a few spoons of oatmeal soup and drink linden tea.

Medical error

In 1902, a small article by Dr. BazhenovGogol's illness and death, where he shares an unexpected thought - most likely, the writer died from improper treatment.

In his notes, Dr. Tarasenkov, who first examined Gogol on February 16, described the writer's condition as follows: “… the pulse was weakened, the tongue was clean, but dry; the skin had a natural warmth. For all reasons, it was clear that he did not have a fever … once he had a slight bleeding from the nose, complained that his hands were chilly, his urine was thick, dark-colored …”.

These symptoms - thick, dark urine, bleeding, constant thirst - are very similar to those seen in chronic mercury poisoning. And mercury was the main component of the drug calomel, which, as is known from the testimonies, Gogol was strenuously fed by doctors, "from stomach disorders."

The peculiarity of calomel is that it does no harm only if it is quickly excreted from the body through the intestines. But this did not happen with Gogol, who simply did not have food in his stomach due to long-term observance of the fast. Accordingly, the old doses of the drug were not removed, new ones were received, creating a situation of chronic poisoning, and the weakening of the body from malnutrition and discouragement only accelerated death, scientists say.

In addition, at the medical council, the wrong diagnosis was made - meningitis. Instead of feeding the writer high-calorie foods and giving him plenty of drink, he was prescribed a procedure that weakened the body - bloodletting. And if not for this "medical aid", Gogol could have survived.

Each of the three versions of the death of the writer has its adherents and opponents. One way or another, this mystery has not yet been solved.

“I will tell you without exaggeration, - I wrote more Ivan TurgenevAksakov, - since I can remember, nothing has made such a depressing impression on me as the death of Gogol … This strange death is a historical event and is not immediately clear; it is a mystery, a difficult, formidable mystery - one must try to unravel it … But the one who unravels it will not find anything gratifying in it."