Narezhny, Vasily Trofimovich

Narezhny, Vasily Trofimovich

(vəsē`lyē trəfē`məvĭch nərĕzh`nē), 1780–1825, Russian novelist. He was an important forerunner of Gogol in his realistic descriptions of Ukrainian and Cossack life. He is best known for the picaresque novel The Russian Gil Blas (1814).