Gogol’s work is inextricably tied to his historical context, specifically mid-19th century Russian society. In the decades between the Napoleonic Wars of 1812 and to the Peasant Emancipation of 1861, Russian intellectuals debated the country’s destiny and relationship to the West.

The plot of Dead Souls rests on the social relationship between Russian aristocrats and the peasant majority in the feudal system of serf labor that was still common in much of Eastern and Central Europe in various forms into the early 19th century, but had already been largely abolished in Western Europe. Serfs, indentured tenant farmers, worked the land for a landowner and did not have freedom of movement. Serfs paid their lord either in labor (barschina) or in quitrent (obrok), a yearly cash tax. Peasants tended to be deeply devout adherents of Russian Orthodox Christianity, which meant that they were culturally almost completely separate from Russian aristocracy, who typically had European-style educations and spoke more French than Russian.

The novel features characters in each social class. The landowners Chichikov defrauds are primarily aristocrats, nobility, and high-ranking military officers who are mocked for their detachment from regular life, their overly ambitious pretentions, and their egotism.

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