What disease did Gogol die from? The mystery of Gogol's death. Three main versions

The mystery of the death of the greatest classic of literature, Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol, has tormented scientists, historians, and researchers for more than a century and a half. How exactly did the writer die? Let's talk about the most popular versions of what happened.

On February 21 (March 4), 1852, the great Russian writer Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol passed away. He died at the age of 42, suddenly, “burning out” in just a few weeks. There are many mysteries and mystical phenomena surrounding his death.

Sopor

This is the most popular version. Rumors about the allegedly terrible death of the classic, buried alive, turned out to be so persistent that many still consider them an absolutely reliable fact. And the poet Andrei Voznesensky even immortalized this hypothesis in 1972 in his poem “The Funeral of Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol.”
We can say that this rumor was created without meaning to... Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol. The fact is that he was prone to fainting and somnambulistic states. Therefore, Gogol was very afraid that during one of his attacks he would be mistaken for dead and buried.
In his “Testament” he wrote: Being in good memory and sound mind, I state here my last will. I bequeath my body not to be buried until obvious signs of decomposition appear. I mention this because even during the illness itself, moments of vital numbness came over me, my heart and pulse stopped beating... It is known that 79 years after the writer’s death, Gogol’s grave was opened to transport the remains from the necropolis of the closed Danilov Monastery to Novodevichy Cemetery. They say that his body lay in an unnatural position for a dead person - his head was turned to the side, and the upholstery of the coffin was torn to shreds. These rumors gave rise to the deep-rooted belief that Nikolai Vasilyevich died terrible death, in complete darkness, underground.
This option is almost unanimously denied by all modern historians.
To understand the illogicality of the version lethargic sleep, just think about the following fact: the exhumation was carried out 79 years after the burial! It is known that the decomposition of a body in a grave occurs incredibly quickly, and after just a few years, only bone tissue remains from it, and the discovered bones no longer have close connections with each other. It is not clear how, after so many years, they could establish some kind of “twisting of the body”... And what remains of the wooden coffin and upholstery material after 79 years of being in the ground? They change so much (rot, fragment) that it is absolutely impossible to establish the fact of “scratching” the inner lining of the coffin.”
And according to the recollections of the sculptor Ramazanov, who made death mask writer, post-mortem changes and the beginning of the process of tissue decomposition were clearly visible on the face of the deceased.

Suicide

In the last months of his life, Gogol suffered from a severe mental crisis. The writer was hit by the death of his close friend, Ekaterina Mikhailovna Khomyakova, who suddenly died from a rapidly developing illness at the age of 35. The classic stopped writing, most devoted time to prayers and fasted furiously. Gogol was overcome by the fear of death; the writer reported to his acquaintances that he heard voices telling him that he would soon be gone.
It was during that feverish period, when the writer was semi-delirious, that he burned the manuscript of the second volume. Dead souls" It is believed that he did this largely under pressure from his confessor, Archpriest Matthew of Konstantinovsky, who was the only one who read this unpublished work and advised us to destroy the records.
The priest had a great influence on Gogol in the last weeks of his life. Considering the writer not righteous enough, the priest demanded that Nikolai Vasilyevich “renounce Pushkin” as a “sinner and pagan.” He urged Gogol to constantly pray and fast, and also intimidated him with the reprisals awaiting him for his sins “in the other world.”
The writer's depressive state intensified. He grew weaker, slept very little and ate practically nothing. In fact, the writer voluntarily extinguished himself from the light.
However, most researchers do not support the version that the writer deliberately “starved himself to death,” that is, essentially committed suicide. Yes and for fatal outcome an adult needs to not eat for 40 days. Gogol refused food for about three weeks, and even then he periodically allowed himself to eat a few spoons of oatmeal soup and drink linden tea.

Medical error

In 1902, a short article by Dr. Bazhenova“The Illness and Death of Gogol,” where he shares an unexpected thought - most likely, the writer died from incorrect treatment.
In his notes, Doctor Tarasenkov, who examined Gogol for the first time on February 16, described the writer’s condition this way: “... the pulse was weakened, the tongue was clean, but dry; the skin had a natural warmth. By all accounts, it was clear that he did not have a fever... once he had a slight nosebleed, complained that his hands were cold, his urine was thick, dark-colored...” These symptoms - thick dark urine, bleeding, constant thirst - are very similar to those observed with chronic mercury poisoning. And mercury was the main component of the drug calomel, which, as is known from evidence, Gogol was intensively fed by doctors “for stomach disorders.”
In addition, at the medical consultation, an erroneous diagnosis was made - “meningitis”. Instead of feeding the writer high-calorie foods and giving him plenty of drink, he was prescribed a procedure that weakened the body - bloodletting. And if not for this “medical care,” Gogol might have remained alive.
Each of the three versions of the writer’s death has its adherents and opponents. One way or another, this mystery has not yet been solved.

Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol - (1809 - 1852) - classic of Russian literature, writer, brilliant satirist, publicist, playwright, critic. He belonged to the old noble family of the Gogol-Yanovskys.

Although the mysterious mystical aura around Gogol’s personality 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 remain a mystery. In reality, from what and how could Gogol die at the 43rd year of his life?

Writer's Oddities

Nikolai Vasilyevich was a difficult person to understand. For example, he slept only sitting up, 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…

Doctors have been trying to determine the cause of death and how Gogol died for more than a century and a half to no avail.

Causes of death (Versions)

Khomyakov put forward the first version of depression, according to which the root cause of Gogol’s death was the severe mental shock that the writer experienced due to sudden death Khomyakova Ekaterina Mikhailovna, sister of the poet N.M. Yazykov, with whom Gogol was friends. “From that time on, he was in some kind of nervous disorder, which took on the character of religious insanity,” from Khomyakov’s memoirs. “He fasted and began to starve himself, reproaching himself for gluttony.”

Ekaterina Mikhailovna Khomyakova (1817-1852), born Yazykova.

This version is allegedly confirmed by the testimony of people who saw the impact that the accusatory conversations of Father Matthew Konstantinovsky had on the writer. It was he who insisted that Gogol observe strict fasting, demanded from him special zeal in fulfilling strict church instructions, and reproached both Nikolai Vasilyevich himself and, whom Gogol revered, for their sinfulness and paganism. The denunciations of the eloquent priest shocked the writer to such an extent that one day he, interrupting Father Matthew, literally groaned: “Enough! Leave me alone, I can’t listen any longer, it’s too scary!” An eyewitness to these conversations, Tertiy Filippov, was sure that the sermons of Father Matthew set Nikolai Vasilyevich in a pessimistic mood, and he believed in the inevitability near death.

Yet there is no reason to believe that great poet gone crazy. Unwitting Witness last hours life of Gogol, a servant of one Simbirsk landowner, paramedic Zaitsev, noted in his memoirs that a day before his death Gogol was in clear memory and sound mind. Having come to his senses after the “therapeutic” torture, he had a friendly conversation with Zaitsev, was interested in his life, he even made amendments to the poems written by Zaitsev on the death of his mother.

The version that Nikolai Vasilyevich died from starvation is also not confirmed. Adult healthy man able to do without food at all for 30-40 days. The writer fasted only 17 days, and even then he did not completely give up food...

However, if not from madness and hunger, then could Gogol’s death be caused by some kind of infectious disease? In Moscow in the winter of 1852, an epidemic of typhoid fever raged, from which, it should be noted, Khomyakova died. That is precisely why Inozemtsev, at the first examination, suspected that Nikolai Vasilyevich had typhus. However, a week later, a council of doctors, which was convened by Count Tolstoy, announced that the writer did not have typhus, but meningitis, and he was prescribed that strange course of treatment, which can only be called “torture” ...

1902 - Dr. N. Bazhenov published a small work, “The Illness and Death of Gogol.” After a careful 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 incorrect, debilitating treatment for meningitis that destroyed 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 their Notes from Dr. Tarasenkov, who examined Nikolai Vasilyevich for the first time 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. By all accounts, it was clear that he did not have a fever... once he had a slight nosebleed, complained that his hands were cold, 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 that he described are practically indistinguishable from the symptoms of chronic mercury poisoning - the main component of the same calomel that every doctor who began treatment fed the writer. In fact, with chronic calomel poisoning, there may be thick dark urine and various types of bleeding, most often gastric, but sometimes nasal. A weak pulse could be either a consequence of the weakening of the body from polishing, or the result of the action of calomel. Many noted that throughout his illness, Nikolai Vasilyevich often asked to drink: thirst is one of the characteristic features chronic poisoning.

Apparently, the beginning of the fatal chain of events was an upset stomach and the “too strong effect of the drugs,” about which the writer complained to Shevyrev on February 5. Because at that time gastric disorders were treated with calomel, it is possible that the medicine prescribed to him was calomel and was prescribed by Inozemtsev, who a few days later fell ill himself and stopped observing the patient. Gogol came under the tutelage of Tarasenkov, who, not knowing that the writer was already taking a dangerous drug, could once again prescribe him calomel. For the third time, Nikolai Vasilyevich received calomel from Klimenkov.

The peculiarity of calomel is that it does not cause harm only if it can quickly be eliminated from the body through the intestines. If it lingers in the stomach, then after some time it begins to act as the strongest mercury poison, sublimate. This is exactly what could have happened to Gogol: the large doses of calomel he took were not removed from the stomach, since Gogol was fasting at the time 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, loss of spirit and Klimenkov’s barbaric treatment only brought the onset of death closer...

The room where 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 suffered from malarial encephalitis. The disease was quite severe 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 persistent that to this day many consider it a completely proven fact.

To a certain extent, rumors about his burial alive were created, without knowing it... by the writer. All because, as already mentioned, Nikolai Vasilyevich was prone to fainting and somnambulistic states. Therefore, the writer was very afraid that during one of his attacks he would be mistaken for dead and buried.

This fact is essentially unanimously denied by modern historians.

“During the exhumation, which was carried out in conditions of a certain secrecy, no more than 20 people gathered at the classic’s grave...,” Mikhail Davidov, associate professor at the Perm Medical Academy, wrote in his article “The Mystery of Gogol’s Death.” — Writer V. Lidin became, in fact, the only source of information about the exhumation of Nikolai Vasilyevich. At first he talked about the reburial to students of the Literary Institute and his acquaintances, and later wrote written memoirs. What Lidin said was untrue and contradictory. It was according to him that Gogol’s oak coffin was well preserved, the upholstery on the inside was torn and scratched, and in the coffin there was a skeleton, unnaturally twisted, with the skull turned to one side. So with light hand Lidin, inexhaustible in his inventions, and the gloomy legend that Gogol was buried alive went for a walk around Moscow.

To understand the inconsistency of the lethargic dream version, you need to think about this fact: the exhumation was carried out 79 years after the burial! Known fact that the decomposition of the body in the grave occurs incredibly quickly, and after just a few years, only bone tissue remains from it, and the bones no longer have close connections with each other. It is unclear how, after so many years, they could establish some kind of “twisting of the body”... And what can remain of a wooden coffin and upholstery material after 79 years of being in the ground? They change so much (rot, fragment) that it is absolutely impossible to establish the fact of “scratching” the inner lining of the coffin.”

And from the memoirs of the sculptor Ramazanov, who removed the death mask of the classic, post-mortem changes and the beginning of the process of tissue decomposition were clearly visible on the face of the deceased.

And yet, Gogol’s version of lethargic sleep is still alive today.

Vanished Skull

Gogol died on February 21, 1852. He was buried in the cemetery of the St. Daniel Monastery, and in 1931 the monastery and the cemetery on its territory were closed. When the writer’s remains were transferred to the Novodevichy cemetery, they discovered that the skull had been stolen from the deceased’s coffin.

And the writer Lidin, inexhaustible in inventions, amazed listeners with new sensational details: According to the version of the same V. Lidin, who was present at the same time, Gogol’s skull was stolen from the grave in 1909. At that time, philanthropist and founder of the theater museum Alexei Bakhrushin was able to persuade the monks to get Nikolai Vasilyevich’s skull for him. “The Bakhrushinsky Theater Museum in Moscow contains three skulls that belong to someone unknown: one of them is presumably the skull of the artist Shchepkin, the other is Gogol’s, nothing is known about the third,” Lidin wrote in his memoirs “The Transfer of Gogol’s Ashes.”

Interesting Fact (Tombstone)

Exists interesting story, which is told to this day at Gogol’s grave... 1940 - another famous Russian writer, who considered himself a student of Nikolai Vasilyevich, died. His wife, Elena Sergeevna, went to choose a stone for the gravestone of her late husband. By chance, she chose only one from a pile of prepared gravestones. When they lifted it to engrave the writer's name on it, they saw that it already had another name on it. When we looked at 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 was finally reunited with his outstanding student.

There has long been debate about whether Gogol was buried alive.
Indeed, the writer was haunted by the fear of being buried during his lifetime. In 1827, Gogol wrote to his friend Vysotsky: “ How hard it is to be buried together with the creatures of the low unknown in the silence of the dead».

Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol (1809-1852)

Gogol begins his collection “Selected Places of Correspondence with Friends” with a will: “ Being in the full presence of memory and common sense, I express here my last will. I bequeath the body not to be buried until obvious signs of decomposition appear... I mention this because even during the illness itself, moments of vital numbness came over me, my heart and pulse stopped beating...».

Photo - Gogol and artists in Rome

Andrei Voznesensky dedicated poetry to Gogol (1972), describing an eerie version of his death:

You carried a living thing across the country.
Gogol was in a lethargic sleep.
Gogol thought in the coffin on his back:

“My underwear was stolen from under my tailcoat.
It blows into the crack, but you can’t get through it.
What are the torments of the Lord?
before waking up in a coffin.”

Open the coffin and freeze in the snow.
Gogol, curled up, lies on his side.
An ingrown toenail tore through the lining of the boot.

Enlarged photo of Gogol (1845), the writer is 36 years old

According to the memoirs of Gogol's contemporaries in Last year life was haunted by the fear of death.

Ekaterina Khomyakova

There is an assumption that Gogol predicted the prophecy of his death in “ Old world landowners", describing the death of Afanasy Ivanovich: " ;He completely submitted to his spiritual conviction that Pulcheria Ivanovna was calling him: he submitted with the will of an obedient child, withered, coughed, melted like a candle, and finally died out like she did, when there was nothing left that could support her poor flame».
It was assumed that the death of Ekaterina Khomyakova had a similar detrimental effect on the writer.

Friends recalled that Gogol was “melting before our eyes,” he was weakening - but refused to eat, he was sick - but he rejected the advice of doctors.
"It was difficult to do anything with a person who rejected all treatment“- his attending physician later said.

Gogol in the coffin

Gogol foresaw a quick end to his life.
On February 7, he confessed and received communion. On the night of February 12, he burned the second volume of Dead Souls.

The next day the writer regretted what he had done. Gogol told A.P. Tolstoy: “ Imagine how strong evil spirit! I wanted to burn papers that had been determined for a long time, but I burned the chapters of Dead Souls, which I wanted to leave it as a souvenir for my friends after my death ».

According to another version, Gogol’s words sounded like this:
“Now everything is gone!” Gogol said to Tolstoy as he entered, pointing to the burning papers.
He said and cried.
“That’s what I did! I wanted to burn some things specially prepared for this, but I burned everything. How strong the evil one is - that’s what he led me to! And I explained and explained a lot of useful things there.”

9 days later (February 21), Gogol died at the age of 42. His last phrase was: “ How sweet it is to die...».
The writer was famous during his lifetime; all of Moscow came to say goodbye to Gogol.

Portrait by F. Moller (1841), Gogol is 32 years old

In June 1931, the writer's ashes were reburied from the cemetery of the St. Daniel's Monastery to the Novodevichy Cemetery.
That’s when the legend arose that Gogol was buried alive.

One of the participants in the reburial, professor of the Literary Institute V.G. Lidin described another unexplained incident. The writer's skull was missing from the coffin.
«... Gogol's grave was opened for almost the whole day. It turned out to be at a much greater depth than ordinary burials. Having started to dig it out, they came across a brick crypt of unusual strength, but did not find a bricked-up hole in it; Then they began to dig in a transverse direction in such a way that the excavation would be to the east, and only in the evening a side aisle of the crypt was discovered, through which the coffin was pushed into the main crypt. The work of opening the crypt took a long time.

It was already dusk when the grave was finally opened. The top boards of the coffin were rotten, but the side boards with preserved foil, metal corners and handles and partially surviving bluish-purple braid were intact. This is what Gogol's ashes represented: there was no skull in the coffin, and Gogol's remains began with the cervical vertebrae: the entire skeleton of the skeleton was enclosed in a well-preserved tobacco-colored frock coat; Even underwear with bone buttons survived under the frock coat; there were shoes on their feet... The shoes were very high heels, approximately 4-5 centimeters, this gives absolute reason to assume that Gogol was of short stature.

When and under what circumstances Gogol's skull disappeared remains a mystery. When opening the grave at a shallow depth, significantly higher than the crypt with the walled coffin, a skull was discovered, but archaeologists recognized it as belonging to young man... Unfortunately, I could not take pictures of Gogol’s remains, since it was already twilight, and the next morning they were transported to the cemetery of the Novodevichy Convent, where they were interred...”

The famous film adaptation of the story "Viy" with Natalya Varleya

Comrade Pompolitians did not disdain to grab grave items as souvenirs:
« Thus, Vsevolod Ivanov took Gogol’s rib, Malyshkin took foil from the coffin, and the director of the cemetery, Komsomol member Arakcheev, even appropriated the shoes of the great writer. What blasphemy! But the historian Bantysh-Kamensky, who in the era of Nicholas I opened the grave of Prince Menshikov, an associate of Peter I, in Berezovo and took his cap “as a souvenir,” was accused of looting and blasphemy. Soviet morality was somewhat different!»

Lidin commented on the emerging version of the writer being buried alive:
« Apparently, due to the foil of the lid of Gogol’s coffin warping over time and the displacement of his remains in the coffin due to the natural subsidence of the earth, the scary legend about a writer buried alive!».

Where Gogol’s head could have gone, Lidin suggested:
« In 1909, when during the installation of the monument to Gogol on Prechistensky Boulevard in Moscow (in honor of the 100th anniversary of the birth of the great writer), the restoration of Gogol’s grave was carried out, one of famous collectors Moscow and Russia Bakhrushin, who is also the founder of the Theater Museum, allegedly persuaded the monks of the St. Daniel Monastery to obtain Gogol’s skull for him, and that indeed in the Bakhrushin Theater Museum in Moscow there are three unknown skulls belonging to someone: one of them, according to assumption, is a skull artist Shchepkin, another - Gogol, nothing is known about the third».

According to legend, Yanovsky, the great-nephew of the writer, managed to take the skull of his ancestor from Bakhrushin. He threatened the desecrator of the ashes with violence - “There are two cartridges here. One in the barrel. The other in the drum. The one in the barrel is for you, if you refuse to give me Nikolai Vasilyevich’s skull. The one in the drum is for me.”...
Yanovsky, Russian lieutenant imperial fleet, took the casket with the skull to Sevastopol, where he served. In 1910, Italian ships arrived in Sevastopol. Yanovsky gave the skull to Captain Borghese with a request to bury the skull in Italy, which Gogol considered his second home. But the captain was unable to fulfill the request.
In a letter of apology to Yanovsky, Borghese writes a strange phrase “A person’s destiny does not end with his life”. Having set sail, the captain handed the skull over to his younger brother for safekeeping.
Borghese Jr. told how he encountered an unidentified phenomenon. On July 14, 1911, setting off by train from Rome, he took with him a casket with a skull. The traveler suddenly felt uneasy and decided to jump off the train. Then he saw a white cloud in which the train disappeared. This is how Gogol's skull ended up on the ghost train.

According to legend, the writer’s ashes were reburied without a skull.

Postcard with a portrait of Gogol

According to the memoirs of a contemporary of Gogol, the writer was very loved in his native land, waited for his return, refusing to believe the words about his death:
« Strange thing. Neighboring farmers, as I verified at that time, indeed, perhaps due to Gogol’s frequent and long stay abroad, were convinced for a long time that he had not died, but was in foreign lands. Some of them, who owed him something in life, even used it to tell fortunes by setting out an empty watered pot at night and planting a spider in it. Gogol’s mother, whom all the neighbors knew and loved closely, told me about this. According to local belief, if a spider crawls out of a pot with convex, slippery walls at night, then the person being told is alive and will return. The spider, who was entrusted by the farmers with deciding whether Rudy Panko was alive, covered the side of the pot with a web at night and crawled out along it; but Gogol, to the chagrin of those who were guessing, did not return»

Gogol (E. Redko) and Smirnova-Rosset (A. Zavorotnyuk)
Film "Gogol. The Closest"

Instructions

At the end of 1851, Gogol settled in Moscow and lived on Nikitsky Boulevard in the house of Count Alexander Tolstoy, with whom he was on friendly terms. In January of the following year, the writer spoke more than once with Archpriest Matthew Konstantinovsky, having previously known him by correspondence. The conversations were rather harsh, the priest reproached Gogol for his lack of piety and humility.

It was Matthew Konstantinovsky who the writer entrusted with reading the almost finished manuscript of the second part of the poem “ Dead Souls", hoping to get his approval. However, the priest, after reading the text of the poem, critically assessed the work and even spoke out against its publication in full, calling Gogol’s book harmful.

A negative assessment of the work and other personal reasons, apparently, forced Gogol to abandon further creativity. A week before Lent, which began in February 1852, the writer began to complain of malaise and stopped eating. Dark thoughts increasingly visited Gogol, as eyewitnesses testify.

A few days before his death, the writer, apparently in a state of spiritual confusion, burned a bunch of notebooks in the fireplace, containing not only the second volume of Dead Souls, but also sketches for other works. Despite the beliefs of his friends, Gogol still did not eat anything, observing strict fasting. In the second half of February, he finally went to bed, refusing help and medical care. All signs indicated that Gogol was already internally preparing for imminent death.

The medical council that met at the invitation of the owner of the house did not come to a consensus when assessing the condition of the sick writer and the causes of his illness. Some believed that the patient was suffering from inflammation of the intestines, others believed that he had typhus or even nervous fever. Some were convinced that the cause of the disease lay in a mental disorder.

The doctors' efforts were unsuccessful. On February 20, 1852, the writer fell into unconsciousness, and in the morning next day died. Gogol was buried in the cemetery of the Danilov Monastery. IN Soviet time the monastery was closed. The grave of the great writer was opened, and his remains were moved to the Novodevichy cemetery.

There is a legend, which has not been fully confirmed, that during the reburial it was discovered that the writer’s remains were in an unnatural position. This gave rise to allegations that Gogol was in a state of lethargic sleep at the time of burial and was buried almost alive. However, probably we're talking about just about speculation based on fears of being buried alive, which the writer expressed during his lifetime.

"Encyclopedia of Death. Chronicles of Charon"

Part 2: Dictionary of Selected Deaths

The ability to live well and die well is one and the same science.

Epicurus

GOGOL Nikolay Vasilievich

(1809-1852) Russian writer

Contemporaries say that for the last year and a half of his life, Gogol was tormented by the fear of death. This fear multiplied when Ekaterina Khomyakova, the sister of the poet N.M. Yazykov, with whom Gogol was friends, died on January 26, 1852. (She died of typhoid fever, while she was pregnant.) Doctor A. T. Tarasenkov says that “her death did not strike her husband and relatives as much as it struck Gogol... He, perhaps, saw death face to face for the first time here ..." A.P. Annenkov also writes about the same thing: "... the contemplation of death was unbearable for him." At the funeral service, peering into the face of the deceased, Gogol, according to A. S. Khomyakov, said: “It’s all over for me...”

Indeed, very soon an attack of an illness incomprehensible to those around him took such hold of the writer that he found himself in last line life.

There are two portraits of Gogol's death - medical and psychological. The first is made up of notes from eyewitnesses (including doctors). Doctor Tarasenkov remembers last day Gogol:

"...When I returned three hours after leaving, at six o'clock in the evening, the bath had already been made, six large leeches were hanging from his nostrils; a lotion was applied to his head. They say that when they undressed him and put him in the bath, he moaned heavily, shouted, said that they were doing this in vain; after they put him in bed again without underwear, he said: “Cover your shoulder, cover your back!”, and when the leeches were placed, he repeated: “No need!”; , he kept repeating: “Remove the leeches, lift them (from your mouth)!” and tried to get them with his hand. They hung with me for a long time, they held his hand with force so that he would not touch them. Over and Klimenkov arrived at seven o’clock. They ordered him to maintain the bleeding longer, put mustard plasters on his limbs, then a patch on the back of his head, ice on his head, and a decoction of marshmallow root with cherry laurel water;

Klimenkov pestered him, kneaded him, grumbled, poured some caustic alcohol on his head, and when the patient groaned from this, the doctor asked: “What hurts, Nikolai Vasilyevich? Eh? Speak up!” But he moaned and did not answer. “They left, I stayed all evening until twelve o’clock and carefully watched what was happening. The pulse quickly and clearly dropped, became even faster and weaker, breathing, already difficult in the morning, became even heavier; the patient was no longer able to turn around on his own, he lay quietly on one side and was calm when nothing was done to him...

Late in the evening he began to forget himself and lose his memory. "Let's keg!"

When he was put to bed again, he lost all senses; his pulse stopped beating; he wheezed, his eyes opened, but seemed lifeless. It seemed that death was coming, but it was a fainting spell that lasted several minutes. The pulse returned soon, but became barely noticeable. After this fainting spell, Gogol no longer asked to drink or turn around; constantly lying on his back with eyes closed without saying a word. At twelve o'clock in the morning my legs began to get cold. I put the jug with hot water

, began to let him swallow the broth more often, and this, apparently, revived him; however, soon the breathing became hoarse and even more difficult; the skin was covered with cold sweat, the eyes turned blue, the face was drawn, like that of a dead man. I left the sufferer in this position...

They told me that Klimenkov arrived soon after me, stayed with him for several hours at night: gave him calomel, covered his whole body with hot bread; at the same time the moaning and piercing scream resumed again. All this probably helped him die faster."

Gogol's death occurred at eight o'clock in the morning on February 21, 1852. E. F. Wagner, who was at the same time, wrote on the same day to her son-in-law (M. P. Pogodin):

“...Nikolai Vasilyevich died, he was still unconscious, a little delirious, apparently he did not suffer, he was quiet all night, he was just breathing heavily; by the morning his breathing became less and less frequent, and he seemed to fall asleep...”

Half a century later, Dr. N. N. Bazhenov stated that the cause of Gogol’s death was improper treatment. “During the last 15-20 years of his life,” Bazhenov asserted, “he suffered from that form of mental illness, which in our science is called periodic psychosis, in the form of so-called periodic melancholy. In all likelihood, his general nutrition and strength were strained by the experience he suffered.” he died in Italy (almost in the fall of 1845) of malaria. He died during an attack of periodic melancholy from exhaustion and acute anemia of the brain, caused both by the very form of the disease - the fasting that accompanied it and the rapid decline in nutrition and strength associated with it - and improper debilitating treatment, especially bloodletting.”

“He did not come to the funeral (of E. Khomyakova), citing illness and nerve ailments. He himself served a memorial service for the deceased in the church and lit a candle. At the same time, he remembered, as if saying goodbye to them, all those close to his heart, all those who had departed from those whom he loved. “It was as if she brought them all to me in gratitude,” he told the Aksakovs, “I felt better.”

"The moment of death is terrible."

“Why is it scary?” they asked him, “just to be sure of God’s mercy towards a suffering person, and then it’s joyful to think about death.” He replied:

“But you need to ask about this those who passed through this moment.”

Ten days before his death, Gogol, being in a painful mental crisis, burned the manuscript of the second volume of the poem (novel) “Dead Souls” and a number of other papers. “I really need to die,” he said to Khomyakov after this, “I’m already ready and I’ll die...” He no longer accepted almost anything from the hands of Semyon, who was constantly standing at his head (after the burning, Gogol moved to the bed and did not get up again), only warm red wine diluted with water.

The concerned owner of the house convened a consultation, all available at that time in Moscow famous doctors gathered at Gogol's bedside. He lay turned to the wall, in a robe and boots, and looked at the icon leaning against the wall Mother of God. He wanted to die quietly, calmly. The clear consciousness that he was dying was written on his face. The voices he heard before burning the second volume were voices from there - the same voices his father heard shortly before his death. In this sense, he was like his father. He believed that he had to die, and this faith was enough to bring him to the grave without any dangerous illness.

And the doctors, not understanding the cause of his illness and looking for it in the body, tried to treat the body.

At the same time, they raped his body, offending his soul with this violence, this interference in the sacrament of care. It was a departure, not a suicide, a conscious, irrevocable departure... He could not live to simply live, to procrastinate and wait for old age. To live and not write (and he was no longer able to write), to live and stand still meant for him to become a dead man during his lifetime...

The doctors were at a loss about the diagnosis, some said that he had inflammation in the intestines, others said that he had typhus, others called it nervous fever, and others did not hide their suspicion of insanity. Actually, they no longer treated him like Gogol, but like a madman, and this was the natural conclusion of the misunderstanding that began since the time of The Inspector General. Doctors presented in in this case a crowd, an audience that did not do all this out of malice, but out of a tragic discrepancy between itself and the poet, who died with a clear mind and strong memory.

At the beginning of 1852, Gogol wrote to Vyazemsky: we must leave “a will behind ourselves to our offspring, which should also be dear to us and close to our hearts, just as children are close to the heart of their father (otherwise the connection between the present and the future is severed) ...” He thought about this connection, and his death - a strange, mysterious death - was this connection, for Gogol in it brought his quest to the end. If previously they accused him of hypocrisy, of hypocrisy, they called him Tartuffe, then there was no hypocrisy anymore. Gogol's rise was confirmed by this last act of his on earth."

Gogol was buried in the graveyard of the Danilov Monastery, but in 1931 the writer’s ashes were transferred to the Novodevichy cemetery. The reburial gave rise to the legend that Gogol died twice, and the second time truly horribly - underground, in the darkness and cramped coffin. During the exhumation, they discovered that the lining of the coffin was all torn from the inside! This means that Gogol may have been buried alive - in a state of lethargic sleep. This is exactly what he was afraid of all his life and warned more than once not to bury him hastily until they were convinced of the authenticity of his death! Alas! The warning didn't help.