38. BOGDAN ZALESKI.

Printed according to the text of "Kievskaya Starina" (see below).

First published in "Gazeta Lwowska" 1899, No 218, and reprinted in "Kievskaya Starina" 1899, book. X, p. 284.

As can be seen from the contents, the letter was written immediately before Gogol's departure from Paris to Rome, i.e., in the second half of February 1837.

Józef Bohdan Zaleski (1802–1886) was a famous Polish poet of the so-called "Ukrainian school". He was born in Ukraine, where he spent his youth. He completed a course at the University of Warsaw. In the early 30s he emigrated to France, and by the end of them he moved to Galicia. In 1841, he published in Paris a collection of poems "Duch od stepu" (The Spirit of the Steppes), which included poems about Ukraine. Later he came to mysticism and religious sentiments.

Gogol met B. Zalessky in 1836 in Paris. V. Shenrock, from the words of A. Danilevsky, to whom he refers in the notes to the first volume of the "Letters" (see p. 431) and in a note on Gogol's relations with the "Zmartvykh rebels" (in the appendices to the third volume of Shenrock's "Materials"), relates: "Lately, Gogol was held back only by the opportunity to see Mickiewicz often, who then lived in Paris... and with another Polish poet, Zaleski. (Since Gogol did not know Polish, the conversation usually took place in Russian or more often in the Little Russian language)." (Shenrock. Materials, III, p. 166).

39. P. A. PLETNEV.

Printed according to the original (PD).

The beginning of the letter was first published in "Notes", I, p. 195; most of the letter with the omission of the end is in Works and Letters, V, pp. 286-287; in full — in "Letters", I, p. 432.

The year of the letter is determined by the postmark: "Received 1837 Apr. 12 noon."

On Gogol's relations with P. A. Pletnev, see note. to Gogol's letter to Pletnev of October 9, 1832 (vol. X of the current edition, p. 452).

A new loss is the death of A. S. Pushkin.