Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol - (1809 - 1852) - classic of Russian literature, writer, brilliant satirist, publicist, playwright, critic. Belonged to the old noble family of Gogol-Yanovsky.
Although the mysterious mystical halo around the personality of Gogol was to a certain extent generated by the blasphemous destruction of his grave and strange inventions, much of the circumstances of his illness and death remains a mystery. In fact, from what and how could Gogol die at the 43rd year of his life?
The weirdness of the writer
Nikolai Vasilievich was an elusive person. For example, he slept only sitting, being careful not to be mistaken for dead. He took long walks around … the house, while drinking a glass of water in each room. From time to time he fell into a state of prolonged stupor. And Gogol's death was mysterious: either he died from poisoning, or from cancer, or from mental illness …
To determine the cause of death and how Gogol died, doctors have been trying to no avail for more than a century and a half.
Causes of death (Versions)
Promotional video:
• Khomyakov put forward the first version of depression, according to which the root cause of Gogol's death was the severe emotional shock that the writer experienced because of the sudden death of Ekaterina Mikhailovna Khomyakova, the poet's sister N. M. Yazykov, with whom Gogol was friends. "From that time on, he was in some kind of nervous breakdown, which took on the character of religious insanity, - from the memoirs of Khomyakov. - He was fasting and began to starve himself, reproaching gluttony."
Ekaterina Mikhailovna Khomyakova (1817-1852), born Yazykova.
This version is allegedly confirmed by the testimony of people who saw the impact the accusatory conversations of Father Matthew Konstantinovsky had on the writer. It was he who insisted that Gogol observe a strict fast, demanded special zeal from him in fulfilling the harsh church instructions, reproached both Nikolai Vasilyevich himself and Alexander Pushkin, before whom Gogol was in awe, for their sinfulness and paganism. The accusations of the eloquent priest shocked the writer to such an extent that one day, interrupting Father Matthew, he literally groaned: “Enough! Leave me alone, I can't listen any longer, it's too scary! Tertiy Filippov, an eyewitness to these conversations, was sure that the sermons of Father Matthew set Nikolai Vasilyevich to a pessimistic mood, and he believed in the inevitability of near death.
• And yet there is no reason to believe that the great poet has gone mad. An involuntary witness of the last hours of Gogol's life, a courtyard of a certain Simbirsk landowner, paramedic Zaitsev, noted in his memoirs that the day before his death, Gogol was in clear memory and sound mind. Recovering from the "medical" torture, he had a friendly conversation with Zaitsev, was interested in his life, he even made amendments to the verses written by Zaitsev on the death of his mother.
• The version, as if Nikolai Vasilyevich died of starvation, is not confirmed either. An adult healthy person is able to do without food for 30-40 days. The writer fasted only 17 days, and even then he did not completely refuse food …
• However, if not from madness and hunger, then could not some infectious disease have caused Gogol's death? In Moscow in the winter of 1852, an epidemic of typhoid fever raged, from which, it should be noted, Khomyakova died. This is precisely why Inozemtsev, at the first examination, suspected that Nikolai Vasilyevich had typhus. However, a week later, a consultation of doctors convened by Count Tolstoy announced that the writer had not typhoid, but meningitis, and that strange course of treatment was prescribed to him, which could only be called "torture" …
1902 - Dr. N. Bazhenov published a small work "Gogol's illness and death." After a thorough study of the symptoms described in the memoirs of Nikolai Vasilyevich's acquaintances and the doctors who treated him, Bazhenov came to the conclusion that it was precisely this wrong, weakening treatment for meningitis that had killed Gogol, which in reality did not exist.
First symptoms
Bazhenov is probably only partly right. The treatment, which was prescribed by a council of doctors, applied when the writer was already hopeless, increased his suffering, but was not the cause of the disease itself, which began much earlier. In his notes, Dr. Tarasenkov, who first examined Nikolai Vasilyevich on February 16, described the symptoms of the disease 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 had no fever … once he had a slight bleeding from the nose, complained that his hands were chilly, his urine was thick, dark-colored …"
Was Gogol accidentally poisoned by doctors?
One can only regret that Bazhenov, while writing his work, did not think to consult a toxicologist. Because the symptoms of the disease, which he described, are practically indistinguishable from the symptoms of chronic mercury poisoning - the main component of the very calomel, which was stuffed with the writer by every doctor who started treatment. In fact, in case of chronic poisoning with calomel, there can be thick dark urine, and all kinds of bleeding, more often stomach, but sometimes nasal. A weak pulse could be both a consequence of the weakening of the body from polishing, and the result of the action of calomel. Many noted that during the entire illness Nikolai Vasilyevich often asked for a drink: thirst is one of the characteristic signs of chronic poisoning.
Apparently, the beginning of the fatal chain of events was an upset stomach and that "too strong effect of drugs" about which the writer complained to Shevyrev on February 5. Because gastric disorders at that time were treated with calomel, it is possible that the prescribed medicine was exactly calomel and that Inozemtsev prescribed it, who a few days later fell ill himself and stopped watching the patient. Gogol came under the tutelage of Tarasenkov, who, not knowing that the writer was already taking dangerous medicine, could once again prescribe calomel for him. For the third time, Nikolai Vasilyevich received the calomel from Klimenkov.
The peculiarity of calomel is that it does not cause harm only if it can be quickly excreted from the body through the intestines. If it lingers in the stomach, then after a while it begins to act as the strongest mercury poison of mercuric chloride. This, as you can see, could have happened to Gogol: the rather large doses of calomel he had taken were not excreted from the stomach, since Gogol was fasting then and there was simply no food in his stomach. The gradually increasing amount of calomel in his stomach caused chronic poisoning, and the weakening of the body from malnutrition, discouragement and Klimenkov's barbaric treatment only brought death closer …
The room in which Gogol died.
Sopor
According to experts, contrary to popular belief, the classic did not have schizophrenia. But he suffered from manic-depressive psychosis. This disease could manifest itself in different ways, but its most powerful manifestation was that the writer was terrified of being buried alive. Perhaps this fear appeared in his youth, after he had been ill with malarial encephalitis. The disease was rather difficult and was accompanied by deep fainting.
This is one of the most common versions. Rumors about the allegedly terrible death of Gogol, who was buried alive, turned out to be so tenacious that to this day many consider it a completely proven fact.
To a certain extent, the writer himself created rumors about his burial alive without knowing it. This is because, as already mentioned, Nikolai Vasilyevich was susceptible to fainting and somnambulistic states. Therefore, the writer was very afraid that in one of the seizures he would be mistaken for dead and buried.
This fact is essentially unanimously denied by modern historians.
“During the exhumation, which was carried out under conditions of certain secrecy, no more than 20 people gathered at the grave of the classic … - wrote Mikhail Davidov, associate professor of the Perm Medical Academy, in his article“The Secret of Gogol's Death”. - The writer V. Lidin became, in fact, the only source of information about the exhumation of Nikolai Vasilyevich. At first, he told about the reburial to students of the Literary Institute and his acquaintances, later he wrote written memoirs. What Lidin said was not true and contradictory. It was according to him that Gogol's oak coffin was well preserved, its upholstery from the inside was torn and scratched, there was a skeleton in the coffin, unnaturally twisted, with the skull turned to one side. So with the light hand of Lidin, inexhaustible on inventions, the gloomy legend that Gogol was buried alive went for a walk in Moscow.
To understand the inconsistency of the version of lethargic sleep, it is necessary to think about the following fact: the exhumation was carried out 79 years after the burial! It is a known fact that the decomposition of a body in a grave occurs incredibly quickly, and after just a few years only bone tissue remains from it, while the bones no longer have close connections with each other. It is unclear how, after so many years, they could have established some kind of "twisting of the body" … And what could remain 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 from the memories of the sculptor Ramazanov, who took off the death mask of the classic, the posthumous changes and the beginning of the process of tissue decomposition were clearly visible on the deceased's face.
Nevertheless, Gogol's version of the lethargic dream is still alive today.
Disappeared Skull
Gogol died on February 21, 1852. He was buried in the cemetery of St. Daniel's monastery, and in 1931 the monastery and the cemetery on its territory were closed. When the remains of the writer were transferred to the Novodevichy cemetery, they discovered that a skull had been stolen from the coffin of the deceased.
And the writer Lidin, inexhaustible on inventions, amazed the listeners with new sensational details: According to the version of the same V. Lidin, who was present at this, Gogol's skull was stolen from the grave in 1909. At that time, the patron of art and founder of the theater museum Alexei Bakhrushin was able to persuade the monks get Nikolai Vasilyevich's skull for him. “The Bakhrushinsky Theater Museum in Moscow contains three unknown skulls: one of them, presumably, is the skull of the artist Shchepkin, the other is Gogol, and nothing is known about the third,” Lidin wrote in his memoirs “The Transfer of Gogol's Ashes”.
Interesting fact (Gravestone)
There is an interesting story that is told to this day at the grave of Gogol … 1940 - another famous Russian writer, Mikhail Bulgakov, died, who considered himself a student of Nikolai Vasilyevich. His wife, Elena Sergeevna, went to choose a stone for the tombstone of her late husband. By chance, she chose only one from a pile of blank gravestones. When they lifted it up to engrave the name of the writer on it, they saw that it already had another name on it. When we examined what was written there, we were even more surprised - it was a tombstone that had disappeared from Gogol's grave. Thus, Nikolai Vasilyevich seemed to give a sign to Bulgakov's relatives that he had finally reunited with his outstanding student.