Having spent many years abroad looking at Russia from the outside, Ukrainian-born Nikolai Gogol was able to see in everyday, prosaic Russian life a grotesque phantasmagoria in which the humorous is inextricably tied with the frightening. In this course, we will systematically examine Gogol’s most important works. Most of our attention will be paid to the so-called “Petersburg Tales,” The Government Inspector, and the mysterious Dead Souls (which contemporaries labeled a novel, but Gogol himself called a poem). We will investigate Gogol’s artistic strategy, his ideology, and peculiarities of his poetics. Gogol’s artistic works will be examined in parallel with the societal, cultural, and literary milieus of his time. Throughout the course, we will familiarize ourselves with important works by Russian critics that exerted influence not only on Gogol’s attitude towards art, but on the development of literary theory (B. Eichenbaum’s “How Gogol’s Overcoat was made” and others).