Два века русской классики (Sep 2020)
Treatment and death of Nikolai Gogol: facts and fiction
Abstract
Among the controversial issues of Nikolai Gogol's biography, the problem of his last days occupies the most important place. This final stage of the writer's life reveals his poorly understood views on the spiritual methods of healing from the disease. It is established that it was precisely these ideas that determined the character of Nikolai Gogol's attitude to medical care shortly before his death. The article touches on a wide range of problems associated with medical practice in the first half of the 19th century. Attention is drawn to the unsuccessfulness of the long treatment of Nikolai Gogol and his friend, poet Nikolay Yazykov, at the main European resorts, with numerous medical luminaries of that time. The apocryphal of some information revealed in the memoirs about Nikolai Gogol of Aleksey Tarasenkov, army staff doctor, who was present at the end of the writer’s life, is revealed. The unreliability of the medical memoirist’s messages is explained by his pragmatic approach in upholding the corporate interests of the medical class, while neglecting Nikolai Gogol’s original appearance. For the first time, the identities of several authoritative physicians who had treated Nikolai Gogol abroad are established. The content of Nikolai Gogol’s last days is inscribed in the context of his long-standing notions of significance of ailments as benediction from providence; personally, the writer considered illnesses to be warning “road signs”, urging patients to search for the right path, and as an artist, in addition, he strained to improve his writing, and that was his creative and prayer feat.
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