Thanks to his own genius (as well as to the atmosphere of the epoch in which he lived), he solved for himself, quite independently of any foreign influence, the problem of bringing Russian literature down from the clouds to everyday real life.

He realized that the world was no longer living in a sort of modern epic, as it had been during the French Revolution and the Napoleonic campaigns, and that literature must conform to the altered conditions.
Naturally, in his new quest after truth, Gogol-Yanovsky (to give him his full name) mingled romanticism and realism at first.

But he soon discovered the true path.

He was born and reared in Little Russia, at Sorotchinsky, Government of Poltava, and was separated only by two generations from the famous epoch of the Zaporozhian kazaks, who lived (as their name implies) below the rapids of the Dniepr.

He has depicted their life in his magnificent novel "Taras Bulba." His grandfather had been the regimental scribe--a post of honor--of that kazak army, and the spirit of the Zaporozhian kazaks still lingered over the land which was full of legends, fervent, superstitious piety, and poetry.
Gogol's grandfather, who figures as "Rudy Panko, the bee-farmer," in the two volumes of Little Russian stories which established his fame, narrated to him at least one-half of those stories.