May night, or drowned man

Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol (1809-1852) is an outstanding writer of the first half of the XIX century, a classic of Russian literature, who has distinguished his original talent.
Gogol was born in a family, according to the legend of the old noble Cossack kind. His homeland was Ukraine, the village of Sorochintsy in the Poltava province, bordering Mirgorod, whose image - both comic and lyrical - so often arises in his works. The Gogol family was large, and life was determined by the village structure of the Little Russians (as representatives of the southwestern group of the Eastern Slavs, living in modern Ukraine, Belarus and Poland, used to be called) It is believed that the father, who wrote amateur plays, and a beautiful appearance, the mother - a devout and prone to mysticism - determined the creative vector of the writer.
It is interesting that Gogol was unimportant by the gymnasium player: he was only interested in Russian literature and drawing, but thanks to excellent memory, he memorized objects, passing exams, and graduated from the gymnasium of higher sciences in the non -Zhin.
At the age of 21, Gogol moves to St. Petersburg as an idealist who is fully intentionally benefiting society. In fact, he could only count on the service with a small official, a college registrar. A boring monotonous work, however, gave him the basis for creating a Homerically absurd story "Nose" - a story about how his nose rushed from a college assessor, satire on modern customs. Write “Nose” was in 1832-1833, and published only in 1836, in the magazine “Contemporary”, founded by Alexander Pushkin, who saw so many unexpected, fantastic, cheerful and original ”.
Pushkin made a colossal coup in Gogol"s life. Entering his literary circle, his interest and support inspired Gogol to create stories exotic for St. Petersburg, painting mystical Little Russia. "Evenings on a Farm Near Dikanka. The novels published by Rudim Panku, published in St. Petersburg in 1831 and 1832, laid the foundation for his glory. They miraculously interwoven terrible and funny, fantastic and ordinary.
The story "May Night, or the drowned man" entered the first part of the cycle "evenings" and connects the story of love and confrontation with beliefs about witches and mermaids