Of prose writers of the same epoch only a few can be mentioned in this book, and these in a few lines. ALEXANDER BESTÚZHEFF (1797-1837), who wrote under the _nom de plume_ of MARLÍNSKIY--one of the “Decembrists,” exiled to Siberia, and later on sent to the Caucasus as a soldier--was the author of very widely-read novels. Like Púshkin and Lérmontoff he was under the influence of Byron, and described “titanic passions” in Byron’s style, as also striking adventures in the style of the French novelists of the Romantic school; but he deserves at the same time to be regarded as the first to write novels from Russian life in which matters of social interest were discussed. Other favourite novelists of the same epoch were: ZAGÓSKIN (1789-1852), the author of extremely popular historical novels, _Yúriy Miloslávskiy_, _Róslavleff_, etc., all written in a sentimentally patriotic style; NARYÉZHNYI (1780-1825), who is considered by some Russian critics as a forerunner of Gógol, because he wrote already in the realistic style, describing, like Gógol, the dark sides of Russian life; and LAZHÉCHNIKOFF (1792-1868), the author of a number of very popular historical novels from Russian life. FOOTNOTES: [10] The great composer Glínka has made of this fairy tale a most beautiful opera (_Ruslán i Ludmíla_), in which Russian, Finnish, Turkish, and Oriental music are intermingled in order to characterise the different heroes. [11] For all translations, not otherwise mentioned, it is myself who is responsible. PART III Gógol CHAPTER III GÓGOL Little Russia--_Nights on a Farm near Dikánka_, and _Mírgorod_--Village life and humour--_How Iván Ivánovitch quarrelled with Iván Nikíforytch_--Historical novel, _Tarás Búlba_--_The Cloak_--Drama, _The Inspector-General_--Its influence--_Dead Souls_: main types--Realism in the Russian novel. With Gógol begins a new period of Russian literature, which is called by Russian literary critics “the Gógol period,” and which lasts to the present date. Gógol was not a Great Russian. He was born in 1809, in a Little Russian or Ukraïnian nobleman’s family. His father had already displayed some literary talent and wrote a few comedies in Little Russian, but Gógol lost him at an early age. The boy was educated in a small provincial town, which he left, however, while still young, and when he was only nineteen he was already at St. Petersburg. At that time the dream of his life was to become an actor, but the manager of the St. Petersburg Imperial theatres did not accept him, and Gógol had to look for another sphere of activity. The Civil Service, in which he obtained the position of a subordinate clerk, was evidently insufficient to interest him, and he soon entered upon his literary career.