“Even So, Come, Lord Jesus”: The mystery of the Nikolai Gogol’s death in the light of his church worldview

The article attempts to recreate the events of Nikolai Gogol’s last days based on reliable well-documented facts, to answer the questions compulsory for making the writer’s academical biography. The latter encompass spiritual, outlook and creative problems. It also reconstructs the events of Gogol’s deathbed days (from January 26 to February 21, 1852), i. e. Ekaterina Khomyakova’s demise, Cheesefare Week, the first and the beginning of the second week of Great Lent. Also it covers the circumstances of burning Gogol’s manuscripts and version of the reasons for the author’s death, particularly the well-spread opinion that he starved himself to death. Only Gogol’s church worldview makes clear his behavior in his last days. The article clarifies the Church Slavonic semantics of the word “requirement” in the margin of Gogol’s Bible opposite to Saint Apostle Paul’s words “I am ... having a desire to depart, and to be with Christ” (Phil. 1:23). The words “Even so, come, Lord Jesus” (Rev. 22:20) engraved on Gogol’s tombstone, undoubtfully express the most important in his life and works, i. e. his endeavor to acquire the Holy Spirit and prepare his soul to encounter with the Lord.