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"The Lost Letter" (1831) is the fourth Ukrainian tale in the 1832 collection Evenings on a Farm Near Dikanka by Nikolai Gogol.
The story is told by an exuberant narrator, the old sexton Foma, who will return with another story, "A Bewitched Place", in the next volume. It was made into an animated film of the same name in 1945.
The sexton humorously recounts the story about his grandfather's adventure in Hell. Once, when his grandfather was given the task of delivering a letter to the Czarina (apparently Empress Elizabeth), he came upon a fair in Konotop where he met a Zaporozhian Cossack. They quickly become friends and drink each other's health. During their carousal, the Cossack reveals that he sold his soul to the devil and if he was any sort of true friend, he’d promise to stay up and watch over him during the current night in order for him to remain safe.
The grandfather and his friends agree, riding on to a tavern. When they sit down to rest, the other Cossacks fall asleep, leaving the grandfather to watch alone. He starts to see things moving under a cart, but ends up falling asleep anyway, awakening to the fact that the Cossack, and the hat he traded to him, are missing. He had sewn the letter to the Czarina in the hat and is anxious to get it back. In addition, his horse is missing as well, and he reasons that the devil, it being such a long walk back to hell, stole his horse to make it a quicker journey.
The grandfather asks everyone for help, and eventually the tavern keeper gives him instructions on how to find what he seeks by taking a strange trip through the forest off the road. He follows the tavern keeper’s instructions, going through brambles and thorns, and comes across a huge field with the stream he was supposed to find in the middle of it, seeing a light moving. He moves towards it, and finds a small group of "pig-faced men" (devils) sitting around it. They do not respond, instead they focus on throwing something into the fire. The grandfather decides to sit down since they don’t seem to respond to him, and asks them for a light for his pipe. One shoves a burning stick in his face, nearly poking his eye out, and he then tells them his story so they will help him. They don’t respond, and merely stick out their empty palms, so the grandfather throws the money he brought with him to the ground.
A huge turmoil ensues, and suddenly he finds himself amongst a large gathering of strange creatures with dog-faces, pig-faces and the like, including several witches, one of whom is the most beautiful and he reasons is the leader. She says he can have his hat back if he wins one of three games of "fool". As he plays, he finds the deck seems to be loaded, as every hand he pulls out, regardless of how good it is, becomes worthless when he throws it on the table. In a rage, and forgetting his fear, he slams his fist on the table, startling the group, and makes the sign of the cross under the cards so they can't see him, and they suddenly become playable again. The grandfather begins to throw out one trump card after the other, and the witches fly into a rage.
Suddenly, the hat flies into his face, but he demands his horse back as well. The group of witches complies and a pile of bones appears, but he still demands to be taken away from them, so they give him a demonic horse that takes him home jumping over huge ravines and areas he will never describe to anyone. He gets to give the letter to the Czarina and the only thing that remains following his ordeal is the fact that once a year, on the date he met the group of demons, his wife has an uncontrollable urge to dance and does, with no way of stopping her.
Witches Abroad is the twelfth Discworld novel by Terry Pratchett, originally published in 1991.
"The Man in the Black Suit" is a horror short story by American writer Stephen King. It was originally published in the October 31, 1994 issue of The New Yorker magazine.
The Fair at Sorochyntsi is a comic opera in three acts by Modest Mussorgsky, composed between 1874 and 1880 in St. Petersburg, Russia. The composer wrote the libretto, which is based on Nikolai Gogol's short story of the same name, from his early (1832) collection of Ukrainian stories Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka. The opera remained unfinished and unperformed at Mussorgsky's death in 1881. Today, the completion by Vissarion Shebalin has become the standard.
Taras Bulba is a romanticized historical novella set in the first half of the 17th century, written by Nikolai Gogol (1809–1852). It features elderly Zaporozhian Cossack Taras Bulba and his sons Andriy and Ostap. The sons study at the Kiev Academy and then return home, whereupon the three men set out on a journey to the Zaporizhian Sich where they join other Cossacks and go to war against Poland.
"Viy", also translated as "The Viy", is a horror novella by the writer Nikolai Gogol, first published in volume 2 of his collection of tales entitled Mirgorod (1835).
"The Fair at Sorochyntsi" is the first story in the collection Evenings on a Farm Near Dikanka by Russian writer Nikolai Gogol. Later in the 19th-century the story was adapted as an opera of the same name by Modest Mussorgsky.
"St. John's Eve", also known as "The Eve of Ivan Kupala", is the second short story in the collection Evenings on a Farm Near Dikanka by Nikolai Gogol. It was first published in 1830 in the literary Russian periodical Otechestvennye Zapiski and in book form in 1831.
"May Night, or the Drowned Maiden" is the third tale in the collection Evenings on a Farm Near Dikanka by Nikolai Gogol. It was made into the opera May Night by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov in 1878–79 and also a Ukrainian setting by Mykola Lysenko.
"Christmas Eve" is the first story in the second volume of the 1832 collection Evenings on a Farm Near Dikanka by Nikolai Gogol.
"A Bewitched Place" is the last story in the second volume of Nikolai Gogol's first collection of short stories, Evenings on a Farm Near Dikanka (1832).
Cherevichki is a comic-fantastic opera in 4 acts, 8 scenes, by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. It was composed in 1885 in Maidanovo, Russia. The libretto was written by Yakov Polonsky, and is based on the story "Christmas Eve", part of the 1832 collection Evenings on a Farm Near Dikanka, by Nikolai Gogol. The opera is a revision of Tchaikovsky's earlier opera Vakula the Smith. The work was first performed in 1887 in Moscow.
The Lost Letter, or A Disappeared Diploma, is a 1945 Soviet animated film directed by the "grandmothers of the Russian animation", Brumberg sisters, and Lamis Bredis. It is the first Soviet traditionally-animated feature film. It was produced at the Soyuzmultfilm studio in Moscow and is based on the 1832 story with the same name by Nikolai Gogol. The creators of the film managed to convey national Ukrainian color and to recreate the magical, fantastic atmosphere peculiar to works of the writer. Also, for a more realistic style of dance in the Zaporozhets and the Cossack, Igor Moiseyev was involved.
The Night Before Christmas is a 1913 silent film made in the Russian Empire by Ladislas Starevich, based on the 1832 tale of the same name by Nikolai Gogol. Unlike most of Starevich's films, it is mainly live-action.
Christmas Eve or The Night Before Christmas is an opera in four acts with music and libretto by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov. Composed between 1894 and 1895, Rimsky-Korsakov based his opera on a short story, "Christmas Eve", from Nikolai Gogol's 1832 collection Evenings on a Farm Near Dikanka. The story had been used as the basis for an opera at least three times previously, including for Tchaikovsky's Vakula the Smith (1874). Oliver Knussen writes that "Rimsky is only interested in recreating the atmosphere of the folk-tale, fleshing it out for his stage pageant in a comparable way to Humperdinck in Hansel. Gerald Abraham, on the other hand, praises the vivid humanity and humour of Rimsky's setting, as well as its atmospheric strength.
The Lost Letter is a 1972 Ukrainian-Soviet musical-tragicomedy film by Dovzhenko Film Studios in Kyiv. The film is based on the novella The Lost Letter: A Tale Told by the Sexton of the N...Church by Nikolai Gogol from the 1832 cycle Evenings on a Farm Near Dikanka.
"Little Claus and Big Claus" is a literary fairy tale by Hans Christian Andersen, published in Danish in 1835 in the first instalment of his booklet Fairy Tales Told for Children. First Collection..
Gogol. The Beginning is a 2017 Russian fantasy-horror film directed by Yegor Baranov loosely based on works by Nikolai Gogol from the 1832 collection Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka. The title role is played by Alexander Petrov.
"The Witch" is an 1886 short story by Anton Chekhov.
Gogol. Viy is a 2018 fantasy-horror film directed by Egor Baranov, sequel to the 2017 film Gogol. The Beginning.
Gogol. A Terrible Vengeance is a 2018 fantasy action horror mystery thriller film directed by Egor Baranov and starring Alexander Petrov in the title role. It is the third and the final film in the title trilogy. The film’s plot follows a resurrected Nikolai Gogol as he continues to try to find and stop the murderous and mysterious Dark Horseman, with the returning help of Inspector Yakov Petrovich Guro, only to stumble upon a shocking truth. The film was released in Russia and worldwide on August 30, 2018 and has received positive reviews.
