BOO. Roz Chast Cartoon and GOGOL'S HEAD

 

Gogol’s Head

I was intrigued by Roz Chast’s hilarious cartoon tale “Boo” (The New Yorker Sketchbook, Oct. 12, 2026), in which she treats the phenomenon of Taphophobia, fear of being buried alive. Chast writes that in the 18^th and 19^th centuries there was even such a thing as a safety coffin, equipped with “spring-loaded lids, air hoses, viewing panels, and bells or flares to signal cemetery workers.” 

The Russian/Ukrainian writer Nikolai Gogol (1809-1852)—the greatest comic genius in all of Russian literature—is the author of such bizarre fictional works as “The Nose,” featuring a schnoz that escapes from a man’s face and goes about living an independent life. Among Gogol’s many personal eccentricities, he was also terrified of being buried alive. He left written instructions to those in charge of undertaking, “Make sure that my corpse is really, truly dead before you bury me.” 

When Gogol died in 1809 he was buried at the Danilov Monastery in Moscow. In June, 1931, Soviet authorities exhumed and opened his coffin, at which time the skeleton was said to be turned on its side and there were scratches on the inside of the coffin lid. Gogol’s head (skull) was also missing. Somebody made up the story about the scratches and the skeleton, but the thing about the missing head is true.