Issue #19

Abstract: The author of the essay examines the interference of censors, publishers and editors with authors’ texts using some words, phrases and passages in Nikolai Gogol’s “Diary of a Madman” to exemplify his reasoning. His point of view is that censorship of fiction, instituted as a branch of officialdom, is unnecessary and useless and the author himself should think of editing and censoring his writings bearing in mind that he is to address the public with its various attitudes, opinions, partialities and prejudices and his work can produce resentment in many or some of the readers and publishers can reject it deeming it immoral or expecting the book to be profitless. Researching Gogol’s life just after his arrival in St Petersburg the author also argues that the evidence provided by Gogol’s contemporaries and his biographers can not be accepted as indisputable.