N. V. Gogol, N. A. Nekrasov

N. V. Gogol was born in 1809 in the Poltava province in Ukraine. The plot of his poem «Мёртвые души» (1842) was suggested to him by Pushkin. The hero Chichikov buys the “souls” of peasants who have died but are still on the lists: a fraud that was possible under the serfdom of the time. In the excerpt in the book he arrives at the estate of the landowner Plyushkin and sees neglect and disorder everywhere: a gloomy yard, decaying buildings, a house full of piled-up things. Through artistic details (the house, the clothes, the room) Gogol reveals the character, and through satire he exposes greed and spiritual death. “Dead souls” are not only the dead peasants but also morally dead people.