The Anguish of Mykola Hohol aka Nikolai Gogol

Rolf Hellebust is a professor of Russian language and literature at the
University of Calgary.

To what country does the author of Dead Souls, born Ukrainian but
revered as one of the greatest Russian writers, really belong? And to
what extent does his self-description as having “twin souls” reflect
the deeper contradictions that have made his life such a beguiling
enigma for literary scholars? The questions addressed by Luckyj in his
slight, but copiously footnoted monograph have become especially timely
in this era of post-Soviet Ukrainian nationalism However, despite his
provocative title, the author distances himself from those for whom
reclaiming Gogol as a pure Ukrainian patriot is as simple as a change of
spelling. Luckyj opens with an historical survey of attitudes towards
Gogol’s ethnicity in Ukraine, Russia, and the West. He follows this
with a biographical sketch stressing the evolution of Gogol’s own
views (both positive and negative) towards his homeland.

Nonspecialists in Russian and Ukrainian history and literature will
find this book relatively inaccessible. Those with a professional
interest in the topic may find something new in the author’s detailed
catalogue of Gogol’s Ukrainian contacts; but it remains short on
analysis. The topic is, admittedly, a complex one. Still, there are too
many questions that are posed and then left unanswered. Luckyj wisely
refuses to commit himself to a romantic, revisionist view of Gogol whose
sense of ethnic identity, warped and repressed by the imperial regime,
would translate itself into artistic genius and self-immolation. Yet the
way he presents his argument suggests that this is precisely his
desire—thwarted only by the frustrating ambiguity of the evidence.