ies of Little Russian country
life called Nights on a Farm near Dikanka. In 1831 he became acquainted
with Pushkin and Zhukovsky, who introduced the "shy Khokhol" (nickname
for "Little Russian"), as he was called, to the house of Madame O.
A. Smirnov, the centre of "an intimate circle of literary men and the
flower of intellectual society." The same year he obtained a position as
instructor of history at the Patriotic Institute, and in 1834 was made
professor of history at the University of St. Petersburg. Though his
lectures were marked by originality and vivid presentation, he seems on
the whole not to have been successful as a professor, and he resigned in
1835.

During this period he kept up his literary activity uninterruptedly, and
in 1835 published his collection of stories, Mirgorod, containing
How Ivan Ivanovich Quarreled with Ivan Nikiforovich, Taras Bulba, and
others. This collection firmly established his position as a leading
author. At the same time he was at work on several plays. The Vladimir
Cross, which was to deal with the higher St. Petersburg functionaries
in the same way as the Revizor with the lesser town officials, was never
concluded, as Gogol realized the impossibility of placing them on the
Russian stage. A few strong scenes were published. The comedy Marriage,
finished in 1835, still finds a place in the Russian theatrical
repertoire. The Gamblers, his only other complete comedy, belongs to a
later period.

After a stay abroad, chiefly in Italy, lasting with some interruptions
for seven years (1836-1841), he returned to his native country, bringing
with him the first part of his greatest work, Dead Souls. The novel,
published the following year, produced a profound impression and made
Gogol's literary reputation supreme. Pushkin, who did not live to see
its publication, on hearing the first chapters read, exclaimed, "God,
how sad our Russia is!" And Alexander Hertzen characterized it as
"a wonderful book, a bitter, but not hopeless rebuke of contemporary
Russia." Aksakov went so far as to call it the Russian national epic,
and Gogol the Russian Homer.

Unfortunately the novel remained incomplete. Gogol began to suffer
from a nervous illness which induced extreme hypochondria. He became
excessively religious, fell under the influence of pietists and a
fanatical priest, sank more and more into mysticism, and went on a
pilgrimage to Jerusalem to worship at the Holy Sepulchre. In this
state o