Alexander Pushkin related to him a humorous anecdote about being mistaken for a government official, which this author turned into his most famous play.
He burned his first published work, the narrative poem "Hanz Kuechelgarten," after critics panned it. He despised the "poshlost," or the banality of the ordinary bureaucratic life, as demonstrated in the collection Arabesques and a work where a man thinks himself to be Ferdinand VIII, king of Spain. Alexander Pushkin related to him a humorous anecdote about being mistaken for a government official, which this author turned into his most famous play. For 10 points, name this Russian author of Diary of a Madman, The Inspector General, and Dead Souls.
He burned his first published work, the narrative poem "Hanz Kuechelgarten," after critics panned it.
Nikolai {Gogol}