Christmas Stories

"Dead Souls" is the famous novel by Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol, written in 1842. The work tells the story of the adventurer Chichikov, who travels across Russia to purchase "dead souls"—serfs who died after the last census but are still counted as living in official documents. In the novel, Gogol masterfully portrays a gallery of landowners and officials, exposing the vices of 19th-century Russian society: greed, stupidity, bureaucracy, and spiritual emptiness. This is not merely a satirical work, but a deep philosophical reflection on the fate of Russia, its people, and its national character.