Dead Souls

Nikolai Gogol's Dead Souls is a spectacular epic poem in prose, and a devastating satire of 19th-century Russia. The novel follows the enigmatic Pavel Ivanovich Chichikov, a mysterious middle-aged gentleman and aspiring con man, who travels the Russian provinces buying up the names of deceased serfs—"dead souls"—still registered on the official census. Chichikov's audacious scheme to use these non-existent people as collateral for a massive loan exposes a grotesque gallery of greedy, corrupt, and absurd landowners, revealing the moral rot and hypocrisy at the heart of the feudal system. Though tragically unfinished, this masterpiece remains one of the foundational texts of Russian literature.