The Marriage

Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol (1809–1852) is a great Russian writer whose books invariably appear in the school literature curriculum. Gogol wrote many famous short stories and tales, as well as the brilliant prose poem “Dead Souls”; he is equally well known for his dramatic works. Among them is the play “The Marriage.”

In genre it is a domestic comedy. It ridicules the habit of metropolitan merchants and officials to arrange marriages for profit, turning the wedding into a banal commercial deal. As always, Gogol observes the characteristic features of Russian bureaucracy and the trading-industrial class with his usual subtle sharpness and sarcasm. Like many other works by the writer, this comedy has not lost its relevance even to this day.