Christmas Eve

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 student: 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