Nikolai Gogol was so terrified of this happening, he even mentioned the phobia in his will: “I ask for my body to not be buried until apparent signs of decay appear.” His request was granted; they even removed the death mask, covering his face with alabaster (which would’ve made it impossible to breathe).
And yet, by some accounts, Gogol simply fell into a lethargic sleep! When his remains were exhumed, people saw torn casket linings and his skeleton in an unnatural position.
The first rumor about Gogol being buried alive emerged straight after his funeral: the monks allegedly heard screams from under the ground. However, the myth truly spread after the reburial of his remains at Novodevichy Cemetery: writer Vladimir Lidin, present at the exhumation, told his acquaintances and students at the Literature Institute about Gogol’s unnaturally twisted skeleton and torn casket linings, also vividly describing it in his memoirs.
However, none of the other 20 people also present at the exhumation ever confirmed this. Instead, there are other testimonies: that after 79 years there was practically no casket at all, and forensic experts had to clean the fallen-apart skeleton with brushes with great difficulty.
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