Mirgorod () is a collection of short stories written by Nikolai Gogol, composed between 1832 and 1834 and first published in 1835. It was significantly revised and expanded by Gogol for an 1842 edition of his complete works. The title Mirgorod is the Russian pronunciation of the name of the Ukrainian city Myrhorod and means "city of peace" in both languages. It is also the setting for the final story in the collection, âÂÂThe Tale of How Ivan Ivanovich Quarreled with Ivan NikiforovichâÂÂ. The title reflects the storiesâ portrayal of provincial Ukrainian life, similar to GogolâÂÂs successful previous collection, Evenings on a Farm Near Dikanka. To solidify this connection between the two works, he attached the subtitle: âÂÂStories which are a continuation of the Evenings on a Farm Near Dikanka.âÂÂ
The collection is a cycle of four stories, divided into two volumes:
Part One
Part Two
The stories in Mirgorod were composed at different times. âÂÂOld World Landownersâ was begun in 1832 when Gogol revisited his birthplace of Sorochyntsi after living in Saint Petersburg for five years, âÂÂViyâ was begun in 1833, and âÂÂThe Tale of How Ivan Ivanovich Quarreled with Ivan Nikiforovichâ had previously appeared in the almanac Housewarming (ÃÂþòþÃÂõûÃÂõ) in 1834. The collection came to completion during GogolâÂÂs ill-fated term as Professor of Medieval History at the University of St. Petersburg in 1834. This period was very productive for Gogol, as he also worked on The Government Inspector and Dead Souls. Neglecting his duties as professor, Gogol wrote to his friend Mikhail Maximovich of his writing, confiding, âÂÂI am working like a horse, but on my own things and not on my lectures.âÂÂ
The two epigraphs that Gogol attaches to Mirgorod reveal his intention to present the stories as a cycle: âÂÂMirgorod is an extremely small town near the Khorol river. It has one rope factory, one brick works, four water mills and forty five windmillsâ and âÂÂAlthough in Mirgorod bread rings are baked from black dough, they are very tasty,â ostensibly taken from works entitled ZyablovskyâÂÂs Geography and Notes of a Traveler respectively. Gogol conceived of the stories as circular like a Mirgorod bread ring, and endeavored to exhaustively display in them the panorama of traditional Ukrainian provincial life.
âÂÂThe Tale of How Ivan Ivanovich Quarreled with Ivan Nikiforovichâ met with disapproval from censors, leading Gogol to pen a preface to the story with thinly veiled contempt for censorship. The preface, however, was also rejected during printing. As a result, Gogol was forced to hastily add two superfluous pages to âÂÂViyâ so that the finished bindings of the first edition would still fit.
Though Mirgorod was not an immediate financial success â to GogolâÂÂs dismay â its contemporary critical reception was very positive. Alexander Pushkin singled out âÂÂOld World Landownersâ in particular as a âÂÂcomic touching idyll, which forces us to laugh through tears of sadness and tenderness.â The influential 19th-century Russian critic Vissarion Belinsky highly praised the collection. In the year of its publication he hailed Gogol as the new âÂÂhead of Russian literature.â Leo Tolstoy read âÂÂViyâ as a young man and counted it among the works of literature that left a âÂÂtremendousâ impression on him.
In his book-length study, Nikolai Gogol, 20th-century novelist Vladimir Nabokov was far harsher. Seeing Mirgorod as a rough precursor to GogolâÂÂs later stories like âÂÂThe Overcoatâ and calling it âÂÂjuvenilia of the false humorist Gogol,â Nabokov declared: âÂÂwhen I want a good nightmare I imagine Gogol penning in Little Russian dialect volume after volume of Dikanka and Mirgorod stuff about ghosts haunting the banks of the Dnieper, burlesque Jews and dashing Cossacks."