Name: Dead Souls
SKU: 58299302
Price: 24.65 EUR
Availability: InStock
Author: Nikolái Gogol
ISBN: 9781508647430

Type

Physical Book

Author

Nikolái Gogol

Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol

Publisher

Createspace

Language

English

Pages

340

Format

Paperback

Dimensions

21.6x14x1.8 cm

Weight

0.39 kg.

ISBN13

9781508647430

Synopsis "Dead Souls"

The exploits of Chichikov, a middle-aged gentleman of middling social class and means. Chichikov arrives in a small town and turns on the charm to woo key local officials and landowners. He reveals little about his past, or his purpose, as he sets about carrying out his bizarre and mysterious plan to acquire "dead souls." The government would tax the landowners based on how many serfs (or "souls") the landowner owned, determined by the census. Censuses in this period were infrequent, so landowners would often be paying taxes on serfs that were no longer living, thus the "dead souls." It is these dead souls, existing on paper only, that Chichikov seeks to purchase from the landlords in the villages he visits; he merely tells the prospective sellers that he has a use for them, and that the sellers would be better off anyway, since selling them would relieve the present owners of a needless tax burden.

Nikolái Gogol

(Author)

View Author's Page

Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol was born in 1809, in present-day Ukraine, and died in Moscow in 1852. He moved to Saint Petersburg in 1828, and after overcoming some setbacks, he entered the literary circles of that city in 1831. His humor, the treatment of themes, the use of language, and stylistic devices left deep marks and set a precedent.
The work of Nikolai Gogol, considered by many critics as the father of Russian realism, laid the foundations for what would be the Golden Age of Russian literature. Dostoevsky, Turgenev, Tolstoy, and Chekhov in the 19th century, as well as Zamyatin, Bulgakov, and Nabokov in the 20th century, acknowledged their debt to this author.

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