Dead Souls portrays and demonstrates the flaws and faults of the Russian mentality and character through endeavors of Pavel Ivanovich Chichikov and typical people of the Russian middle-class, whom he encounters. The novel reveals an encompassing picture of the ailing social system in Russia after the unsuccessful French invasion.

Nikolai Vasilievich (1809-1852) was a Russian dramatist of Ukrainian origin. Although Gogol was considered by his contemporaries to be one of the preeminent figures of the natural school of Russian literary realism, later critics have found in his work a fundamentally romantic sensibility, with strains of surrealism and the grotesque. His early works were influenced by his Ukrainian upbringing, Ukrainian culture and folklore. His later writing satirized political corruption in the Russian Empire (The Government Inspector, Dead Souls).