This the conclusion of the essay by Professor Ivan Andreev on the life and religious development of one of Russia’s greatest authors, Nikolai Gogol. You can read part one here, part two here, and part three here.
To strengthen the humility just beginning to bud inside him, in 1848 he traveled to Palestine, to the tomb of the Saviour, suffering in the process great spiritual trepidation at the thought of his own sinfulness, fearing he would defile the holiness of the place he was to visit.
After his return from the Holy Land (where he spent February, March, and April of 1848), Gogol wrote to Father Matthew: “I will tell you that never before have I been so unsatisfied with the state of my own heart, as in Jerusalem and after Jerusalem.” Later, in a letter to Zhukovsky, Gogol said: “My visit to Palestine was definitely made so that I could see with my own eyes the miserliness of my heart.”
From this genuine, sincere, humble self-discovery, Gogol begin a slow, gradual spiritual recuperation, which was accompanied by a temporary improvement of his physical health. Even in 1845, in one of his letters to Smirnova, Gogol wrote: “The greatest good that I have ever gained, I gained from my sorrowful and difficult moments, and not for any price would I want to give up those sorrowful and difficult moments of life.” After his return from Palestine, Gogol became even more convinced of this truth.
Gogol owed a great deal of his religious rebirth after the difficult spiritual crisis that accompanied the failure of the Selections to Father Matthew Konstantinovsky.
K. Mochulsky, in his book The Spiritual Path of Gogol (Paris, 1934), gives a withering critique to the baseless hypothesis of D. S. Merezhkovsky, who described Father Matthew as a dour fanatical ascetic who first killed the soul, then the body of Gogol. Mochulsky collected extremely compelling documentary evidence (the witnesses of
N. Barsukov, the Optina monk Father E. V. and Archpriest F. I. Obraztsov) proving the exact opposite. According to these authoritative and detailed witnesses, Father Matthew was not a fanatic, but a shy country priest who would often become inspired (so that his face would light up and shine) during sermons and after completing the Liturgy. He had a firm, unshakable faith. He was always joyful, his meek face was often decorated with a smile, and no one ever heard an angry word from him. He was always even-keeled and calm, led a strict life of moderation, and loved the poor and the wanderers. Gogol deeply appreciated Father Matthew and received help from him in the most difficult and heavy moments of his life.
The religious and moral growth of the great writer after his trip to the Holy Land widened and deepened his creative talents and gave him the strength to finish his work of many years in the summer of 1851. Having returned from Palestine, Gogol once again began to write the second volume of Dead Souls.
The witness of such “exacting critics” and such artistically sensitive people as S. T. Aksakov, A. O. Smirnova, Arpoldi, Maximovich, Prince D.A. Obolensky, and Shevyrev cannot be denied—all these people, to whom Gogol gave the finished chapters of Volume Two of Dead Souls to read, were absolutely thrilled with the result. Smirnova said that the first volume completely paled in comparison with the second: “Here the humor was raised to the highest level of artistry and combined with such a pathos that it took my breath away.”
But especially valuable is the appraisal of Aksakov after hearing Gogol himself read:
Such an ability to reveal the hidden depths in sinful men cannot be found anywhere except in Homer. Only now am I convinced fully that Gogol will be able to fulfill that goal that he rather brazenly and conceitedly announced in Volume One. Yes, a great deal of dross must be burned off in life, before the pure gold can pour out. . . .
In 1850 and 1851, Gogol traveled to the Optina Hermitage and spoke with the elders Moses, Anthony, and especially Makary. Undoubtedly these discussions, as well as the discussions with Father Matthew Konstantinovsky, had a good influence on the much-suffering soul of the writer.
At the end of 1851, Gogol finished and carefully revised Meditations on the Divine Liturgy, a “creative testament” that he wrote in 1845 and wished to publish in a cheap edition for the common people. This work of Gogol’s is one of his most inspired and profound writings, a simply, clearly, and accessibly written commentary on the Orthodox liturgy.
On January 26, 1852, A. S. Khomiakov’s wife died (the sister of Gogol’s friend, the poet Yazykov). This death deeply shook Gogol. During the memorial service, he suddenly said, “It is all finished for me.”
According to the witness of Dr. A. T. Tarasenkov, Gogol had some sort of vision during the night of February 8, 1852, where “he saw himself dead, heard some kind of voices,” and began to consider himself not long for this world. He received Unction, communed of the Holy Mysteries, and began to prepare for death.
Concerning these days, Pletnev wrote to Zhukovsky: “Allowing himself only a few drops of water with red wine, he continued to stand on his knees and pray before a multitude of icons that he had placed before him. All questions were answered quietly and meekly: ‘Let me be, I am well.’” There are indications that his worried friends wrote to Metropolitan Philaret, who ordered Gogol to listen to the demands of his doctors. But Gogol, completely absorbed in his prayer, alone with God, did not heed these instructions.
During the night of February 11, 1852, Gogol burned his favorite brainchild, his completed work of many years, the second volume of Dead Souls. M. P. Pogodin describes this event thus:
From the evening Gogol prayed for a long time alone in his room. At three o’clock in the morning he called his servant boy and asked him if it was warm in the other half of his apartments. The boy answered, “It’s cold.” “Give me a shawl, let’s go. I need to take care of something.” And he went with a candle in his hands, crossing himself as he entered every room. As he walked in, he told his servant to open up the flue as quietly as possible, not to wake anyone, and then to give him a briefcase from the closet. When the briefcase was brought, he pulled out a bundle of notebooks tied together with a string, put them into the stove, and lit them with his candle. The boy, when he understood what was happening, fell down before him onto his knees and said, “Barin, what are you doing? Stop it!” “It doesn’t concern you,” he answered, “just pray.” The boy started to cry and to beg him to stop. In the meantime the fire died out after only the corners of the notebooks were singed. Gogol noticed it, pulled out the bundle of notebooks, untied the string and laid them out in such a way that they would burn better, lit them again, and sat on a chair before the fire, waiting for it all to burn to ashes. Then, after crossing himself, he returned into the other room, kissed the boy, lay down on his couch and started to weep.
This description, full of precious and exact details, is beyond price. From it one can see that Gogol burned Dead Souls with a fully clear intention, in his right mind, not in some kind of nervous or psychopathological fit.
The next day, Gogol said to Count A. N. Tolstoy: “Can you visualize how strong the evil one is? I wanted to burn some papers that I had long ago decided to destroy, but instead burned the chapters of Dead Souls that I wanted to leave for my friends after my death.”
However, taking into account all the circumstances determining Gogol’s state of soul, it is completely impossible to agree with the explanation given by Count Tolstoy. The tone in which this explanation was given also does not correspond with its content. Gogol’s tone was not tragic, but heroic, as if he didn’t even care about what he was saying. How can one explain this fact? What were the true motives behind burning the finished work, which Gogol himself valued, carefully arranged and lovingly tied together with string? Why did Gogol burn a book that he himself was happy with and that was so highly regarded by an objective, very competent group of people with undisputed artistic taste? Let us try to make sense of this difficult question.
In his fourth letter on the subject of Dead Souls, marked “1846” and included in the Selections, Gogol gave a reason for his first burning of the completed chapters of part two of his “poem” in 1845:
Then I burned the second volume of Dead Souls, which was necessary. “He will not live, unless he first die,” said the Apostle. It’s necessary first to die to resurrect. It was not easy to burn the work of five years, which was written with such painful intensity, when every line was squeezed out with difficulty, where there was much good that reflected my brightest thoughts and occupied my soul. But it was all burned, and at that precise moment when, seeing my own death before me, I wanted very much to leave something behind that would remind others of me. I thank God that he gave me the strength to do this. As soon as the flame took away the last pages of my book, its contents suddenly resurrected in a cleansed and bright form, like a phoenix from the ashes, and I suddenly saw how messy was everything that I had imagined to be properly organized. If the second volume had appeared in the form that it was then, it would have resulted in more harm than good. . . . I was not born to create a new movement in literature. My job is simpler and closer to home—my work is that which every person must think about, not only I alone. My work is the soul and the inner work of life. . . .
These were the reasons for the first burning of Dead Souls. These same motives, but on a much more profound level due to Gogol’s spiritual growth, were the source of the second burning, this time of the completed work.
In the Author’s Confession, written after the Selections, Gogol for the first time seriously mentioned the possibility of giving up the life of the writer for the sake of a greater labor. He wrote with shocking sincerity:
What would that cost me! It would be truly more difficult for me to give up writing than for anyone else, when it was the sole object of all my aspirations, when I had left everything else, all the best allurements of life and, like a monk, tore myself away from everything that is sweet for a person on this earth so that I would think of nothing but my work. It is not easy for me to reject writing. Some of the best moments of my life were those when I finally put to paper that which for a long time flew around in my thoughts. I am still convinced that there is hardly a higher pleasure than the pleasure of creating. But I repeat: as an honorable man, I have to put down the pen even when I feel a call to write. I don’t know if I would have enough honesty to do this, if the ability to write was not actually taken from me. Because, I say with all honesty, life would lose all value for me in that moment, and for me not to write would be the same as not to live. But there is never a dearth that is not afterwards filled with some replacement, in proof of the fact that not even for a little time does the Creator leave man. . .
From that last thought, as from a small seed, and from the years of his spiritual growth, a decision grew inside Gogol to burn his last, finished work, and to fall silent. The burning of the second volume of Dead Souls before his death was Gogol’s greatest podvig, which he wanted to hide not only from people, but from himself as well.
Three weeks before his death, Gogol wrote to his friend Zhukovsky: “Pray for me that my work be truly virtuous and that I be found worthy to sing the hymn to heavenly Beauty.” Heavenly beauty is incomparable to earthly beauty and is unutterable in human language. This is why “silence is the mystery of the age to come.”
Before his death, Gogol understood this completely; he burned what he wrote and fell silent, and then he died. This was on February 21, 1852. A few days before his death, he wrote with great difficulty: “If you will not be innocent as children, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven. Have mercy on me a sinner, forgive me, Lord. Bind Satan once again through the mystical power of your unutterable Cross. ” The last phrase clearly shows that Gogol believed Satan to be “untied”; in other words, he thought that the world was already experiencing the Last Days.
According to Shevyrev, some of the last words that Gogol uttered before death, while still lucid, were the following: “How sweet it is to die.” If we remember that “the fear of death” was one of the primary motivations in his life, then these words resonate with a special, deep, touching meaning. According to Dr. A. T. Tarasenkov, a few hours before his death Gogol “mumbled something incoherent, as if he were dreaming, repeating several times: ‘Come on, come on. Now what?’ During the eleventh hour he cried loudly ‘A ladder, quickly get me a ladder!’ It seemed he wanted to get up.”
Any psychiatrist will tell you that delirium is not a completely meaningless phenomenon. It is often a manifestation of deep subconscious worries. Gogol’s “scenic imagination,” his tendency to express his spiritual suffering symbolically, the intensity of his religious feeling just before death, his general lifelong inclination towards God—all these allow us to find significant meaning even in these last words. The meaning is simple yet profound. A ladder is necessary for climbing to a high place. Gogol’s last movement on earth was a desire to rise higher (“It seemed he wanted to get up”) and his last earthly request was a request to help him rise up.
Thus, for his untiring, constant inclination upwards towards the heavens, to Christ, that he showed from the beginning of life until the last breath; for his unbending “desire to be better”; and for the patient carrying of the cross of his soul’s genius and his spiritual and bodily weakness and sickliness, the suffering writer was found worthy of a truly Christian end.