Dead serf

Author: Gogol
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2004-01-01
Features: Popular Edition of World Literary Masterpieces. This book is an important work by the 19th-century Russian writer Gogol. The novel depicts Tchichikov, a merchant who specializes in fraud, who comes to a remote provincial city to acquire serfs who have already died but are still removed from the tax rolls as collateral, engaging in buy-low-sell-high transactions to make huge profits. He visits the governor, the prosecutor, the civil affairs director, and the police chief one by one, dazzling them with his fantastical flattery and becoming their favored guests. Subsequently, he goes to visit some local landowners to buy the dead serfs. In the end, when his disgrace is exposed, he flees. Through exposing Tchichikov's entire process of bluffing and deception, the author vividly portrays the ignorance, greed, sycophancy, and vulgar mediocrity of the bureaucracy and landowners. The character development and humor in the novel are considered uniquely ingenious and distinctive in the history of Russian literature.