Koltsov's verse paints peasant life as it is, without any sentimentality or rhetoric; it is described from the inside, and not from the outside. This is the great difference between Koltsov and other popular poets who came later. Moreover, he caught and reproduced the true _Volkston_ in his lyrics, so that they are indistinguishable in accent from real folk-poetry. Koltsov sings of the woods, and the rustling rye, of harvest time and sowing; the song of the love-sick girl reaping; the lonely grave; the vague dreams and desires of the peasant's heart. His pictures have the dignity and truth of Jean François Millet, and his "lyrical cry" is as authentic as that of Burns. His more literary poems are like Burns' English poems compared with his work in the Scots. But he died the year after Lermontov, of consumption, and with his death the curtain was rung down on the first act of Russian literature. When it was next rung up, it was on the age of prose.
When the curtain again rose on Russian literature it was on an era of prose; and the leading protagonist of that era, both by his works of fiction and his dramatic work, was NICHOLAS GOGOL [1809-52]. It is true that in the thirties Russia began to produce home-made novels. In Pushkin's story _The Queen of Spades_, when somebody asks the old Countess if she wishes to read a Russian novel, she says "A Russian novel? Are there any?" This stage had been passed; but the novels and the plays that were produced at this time until the advent of Gogol have been--deservedly for the greater part--forgotten. And, just as Lermontov was the successor of Pushkin in the domain of poetry, so in the domain of satire Gogol was the successor of Griboyedov; and in creating a national work he was the heir of Pushkin.
Gogol was a Little Russian. He was born in 1809 near Poltava, in the Cossack country, and was brought up by his grandfather, a Cossack; but he left the Ukraine and settled in 1829 in St. Petersburg, where he obtained a place in a Government office. After an unsuccessful attempt to go on the stage, and a brief career as tutor, he was given a professorship of History; but he failed here also, and finally turned to literature. The publication of his first efforts gained him the acquaintance of the literary men of the day, and he became the friend of Pushkin, who proved a valuable friend, adviser, and critic, and urged him to write on the life of the people. He lived in St. Petersburg from 1829 to 1836; and it was perhaps home-sickness which inspired him to write his Little Russian sketches--_Evenings on a Farm on the Dikanka_,--which appeared in 1832, followed by _Mirgorod_, a second series, in 1834.