Anastasia Shteinert: The Mysterious Literary Worlds of Nikolai Gogol

In her presentation, which was illustrated with some beautiful slides, Anastasia Shteinert first provided an outline of the life and work of Nikolai Gogol (1809-1852). She mentioned a number of Gogol’s key works and told us about some of the fascinating aspects of his life - his childhood in Ukraine and the importance of his Ukrainian heritage, his travels in Europe, the story behind his burning of the second part of his novel Dead Souls and the mysterious circumstances of his death. Anastasia then focused more closely on Gogol’s famous Petersburg Tales and in particular The Overcoat, his most influential short story. Anastasia showed how in each of the stories St. Petersburg appears as a unifying backdrop - and, at times, almost as a character in its own right.
Anastasia Shteinert is an historian and journalist who was born in St. Petersburg, Russia, and who is now based in Boston in the USA, where she is studying for a Ph.D in History at Brandeis University. She works as a content creator and lecture host at the Russian History Museum, Jordanville, New York State.