GigaChat, the generative AI developed by Sber, has generated a continuation of Nikolai Gogol's classic novel Dead Souls under the guidance of historians, literary scholars, linguists, and engineers.
Gogol destroyed the manuscript of the second volume in 1852. The project team created its own version of the further adventures of the character Chichikov. The model was trained on Gogol's complete works, personal letters, surviving drafts, texts by his contemporaries, and philosophical and religious writings that could have inspired the author.
Every generated fragment underwent expert review. The objective was to produce new literary images and meanings instead of reassembling familiar Gogolian phrases. Illustrations for the project were also created by a neural network, drawing stylistic inspiration from the engravings of Alexander Agin, who illustrated the first volume during Gogol's lifetime.
Sber describes the initiative as a literary experiment combining AI with human expertise in both text and visual elements. The two stated goals are to showcase the capabilities of neural networks as tools for analysis and creativity when used by specialists and to engage younger audiences with Russian classical literature.
Vladislav Kreynin emphasized that the project does not settle ongoing scholarly disputes regarding the destroyed original manuscript. Readers are left with a new continuation created jointly by AI and human experts, while the question of what Gogol actually wrote and burned remains unanswered. The effort does, however, provide a genuine reason to revisit the first volume.
