Gogol: Russian or Ukranian? Settling the matter once and for all

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#gogol
#russianliterature

[rashmigupta]

Would we call a writer from Texas, a Texan or American writer? What if Texas secedes from USA in future? Should there be any controversy about him then or should both be happy to call him theirs?

Russia and Ukraine, both have a rightful claim to Gogol. The problem is Ukraine wants to cut off its Russian heritage and disown Russian language. Why, then, should they accept Gogol?

[denisgreen]

as Ukrainian, I consider a Gogol as a Russian author of Ukrainian origin. He wrote in Russian and that is what matters. Ukrainian literature has lots of great authors who lived in the same time or earlier with Gogol and wrote in own language and were`nt considering russian empire as their motherland

[CA-jzbm]

If we must never talk about literature when country is at war, then we would never talk about Hemingway

[Barklord]

Gogol was actually from another galaxy.

[barrymoore]

I have come to believe that the simplest and most sensible means to categorize literature is by the language in which the literature is written. Hence, Joyce's 'A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man' is a work of English literature, the original text of Beckett's 'En attendant Godot' is a specimen of French literature, and Gogol's 'Dead Souls' is a masterpiece of Russian literature.

[skywillfindyou]

Funnily, hardly Ukranian and Russian were different nationalities back then.

[OccamsRazor]

I don't understand the lack of reality and people being so fragile in this day and age.
Thankyou for what you're doing. ❤

[barrymoore]

Gogol was ethnically Ukrainian but was born a subject of imperial Russia, and composed in the Russian language.

[sertol]

The language a writer writes in does not identify his ethnicity. For instance, Jack London, Hemingway, Fitzgerald etc. were writing in English. This does not nake them British writers. Similarly, Joyce and Oscar Wilde were weiting in English, but this does not make them British writers. Walter Scott and Stivenson are Scottish writers, not English. Etc, etc. The same is with Gogol. He was writing in Russian - the official language of the empire he lived in. But he is a Ukrainian writer.

[bronicage]

I live in Norway, we got both Russians and Ukrainians here, and it is almost impossible to tell the difference, Ukrainians tend to be a little darker but that is it. They got same language (yes they both speak russian), same religion, same culture. So before we can say if Gogol is Ukrainian or Russian we need to first find the difference between the 2, which is hard because there are almost none.

[not_emerald]

You summed it up right in the beginning of the video: watch less news, read more. Great video on the history of literature and geography.

[danilserov]

К слову о том, кем был Гоголь по национальности можно узнать у него у самого. В книге есть текст его завещания, где

В заключение прошу всех в России помолиться обо мне, начиная от святителей, которых уже уже вся жизнь есть одна молитва. Прошу молитвы как утех, которые смиренно не веруют в силу молитв своих, так и у тех, которые не веруют вовсе в молитву и даже не знают ее нужною: но как бы ни была бессильна и черства их молитва, я прошу помолится обо мне этой самой бессильной и черствой их молитвой. Я же у Гроба Господнего буду молится о всех моих соотечественниках, не исключая из них ни единого; моя молитва будет так же бессильна и черства, если святая небесная милость не превратит ее в то, чем должна быть наша молитва.

1846, июль

[grumpyyyyy]

As regards Irish writers, pre-independence writers like Wilde or Swift are regarded as Irish writers now, even though they would have been British subjects at the time. The issue is further complicated by the fact that both were Anglo-Irish (Protestant English settlers) by origin, and not ethnically Irish. They are giants of English literature in terms of the language itself, but Irish people might object if you referred to them as English.

[НатальяМиргород-ву]

“In The Inspector General, I decided to collect in one pile everything bad in Russia that I knew then, all the injustices that are being done in those places and in those cases where justice is most required from a person, and at one time laugh at everything” N.V.Gogol.

[unholymetaphor]

Gogol translates so well in English. Gogol is always a perfect read for a laugh 😂 Gogol was a genius!

[rafaelbaere]

One thing is where he was born. Another thing is where he lived, what inspired him and what landscape he described.

[danielforeroc]

He was a malorussian from Poltava, he himself said so. But those national definitions are obsolete by now, the bolsheviks created a mess out of it.

[lpragmatique]

fun fact: pre-revolution Russian encyclopedia "Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopaedic Dictionary" names Gogol as Little Russia's(i.e. Ukrainian) nationalist(volume 68, p.635 in Russian edition)

[romanitto]

It’s too bad our people are so idiotically reacting to your words. You’re absolutely right about him. Thank you for your work! From Ukraine with love!

[Anastasia-nnfy]

People back then both in little Russia and great Russia (Velikorossiya) called themselves Russian.

Little Russia was just a region. So gogol did consider himself Russian and also a little Russian
Just like people in Provence consider themselves both French and Provence