What Bible Translation Does Gogol Quote?

The paper aims to determine what translation of The Wisdom of Jesus son of Sirach Nikolai Gogol cites in Selected Passages from Correspondence with Friends. The text of the quotation is compared with the poetic rendering by Gavriil Pakatsky, the Elizabeth Bible, the Septuagint, Latin Vulgate Bible, the French translation by Lemaitre de Sacy and the Eng­lish Douay-Rheims Bible. The author comes to the conclusion that the quotes from the book are translated by Gogol himself from the French version of Lemaitre de Sacy. The history of the translation is discussed in the context of artistic relationship between Gogol and Vasi­ly Zhukovsky in 1840s and their common interest to “wisdom” books of the Old Testament. This interest is testified by the notes in The Wisdom of Solomon, The Wisdom of Jesus son of Sirach and Ecclesiastes from the copies of the Bible belonging to Zhukovsky and Gogol, as well as rendering of Chapter 17 from The Wisdom of Solomon done by Gogol in Chapter 26 from Selected Passages from Correspondence with Friends and by Zhukovsky in his poem Egyptian Darkness

Keywords: Nikolai Gogol, Vasily Zhukovsky, Bible, translation, Sirach.

What Bible Translation Does Gogol Quote?