The article discusses perception of personality and creativity of Nikolai Gogol in Russia at the turn of the 19–20th centuries and shows the dynamics of the changing attitude towards the writer in Russia in the first decade of the 20th century. In the center of the analysis are the assessments given to this writer by Russian modernists. It is shown that the tragic fate of Gogol for the modernists of the first wave – the senior symbolists – became an important argument in disputes with the Orthodox clergy about the essence of the religious ideal. The younger symbolists otherwise perceived Gogol and found in his personal and creative fate the answers for their actual questions.