SOURCE: "A Few Words About Pushkin," in Russian Literature Triquarterly; Vol. 10, 1974, pp. 180-83.

In the following essay, originally published in 1832, Gogol lauds Pushkin as Russia's national poet.

The name of Pushkin immediately evokes the thought—Russian national poet. Indeed, none of our poets is higher than he and none deserves more to be called "national"; this right decisively belongs to him. All the richness, power, and versatility of our language is contained in him, as if in a lexicon. More than anyone else he has further extended the limits of the language and has demonstrated its breadth. Pushkin is an extraordinary phenomenon and, perhaps, a singular phenomenon of the Russian spirit: a Russian of a development such as his won't appear for perhaps another two hundred years. In him, Russian nature, the Russian soul, Russian language and Russian character have been reflected in such purity, in such clean...