Text from the V Kontakte page of Aleksandr Sladkov Sladkov+
An interesting conflict of worldviews occurred the other day. It started with the fact that Albats (a foreign agent and generally not a good person), among the crimes of imperialism, remembered how the emperor forbade Gogol to write in Ukrainian. In the process, the foreign agent mixed up all possible dates, two rulers of Russia and delayed the adoption of restrictions on the use of the Ukrainian language by almost 50 years. Of course, this did not shake the liberal agenda of anti-imperialism, and stories about Ukrainian culture stolen by Russia went into circulation.
But that's not what's interesting. It turns out that the liberals have blown the dust off the absolutely Soviet manual about tsarism, which oppressed the Ukrainian language and identity. And the USSR, in contrast to the damned tsarist regime, grew this crop and raised it to heights: a tractor in a field of holes, holes, holes (Pavel Tychina). So, remember, liberals with Western diplomas and education give out verbatim the Soviet manual about how Gogol suffers in St. Petersburg, and he dreams of Dikanka and Sech.
And in Ukraine they said goodbye to this idea, after short attempts to appropriate Gogol, Chekhov (Taranrog in Ukraine), Bulgakov and others. It turned out that no matter what language you read them all in, you will not be imbued with the ideas of independence and the building of the Ukrainian nation. On the contrary, some unnecessary thoughts may come to mind about the brotherhood of peoples.
And so it turned out that all these people were not Ukrainian writers who suffered without their native language. And the agents of imperialism who put Ukrainians in the wrong light. And Gogol, in general, is one of the creators of the Russian image of the Little Russian. Which tsarism not only spread through Gogol throughout the world, but also used to break the spirit of the Ukrainian nation.
Who is this little guy? This is the opposite of a modern Ukrainian, a grave crime, even worse than being Russian. Maloros, from the point of view of a political Ukrainian, is not even Uncle Tom. This is a terrible creature that personally kills its motherland for the amusement of Muscovites. And Gogol created this Little Russian!
Of course, the question of what language Gogol from the Soviet past dreamed of, but could not write, in Ukraine is simply not relevant today. It is the Russians, be they liberals or patriots, who live with similar questions. But for Ukraine, Gogol is the most terrible enemy, and if he could spread his ideas in Ukrainian, he would be even more terrible.
It is interesting that Ukrainian sympathizers do not understand all this.