instance_of the fair at sorochyntsi 
Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol (  ) was a Ukrainian - born Russian dramatist , novelist and ___MASK48___ writer whose ___MASK100___ was strongly influenced by Ukrainian culture . Modest Petrovich Mussorgsky ( ) was a Russian composer , one of the ___MASK3___ known as " The ___MASK77___ ". He was an innovator of Russian music in the romantic period . He strove to achieve a uniquely Russian ___MASK51___ identity , often in deliberate defiance of the established conventions of Western music . Ukrainian ___MASK35___ and ___MASK54___ of Ukraine and ethnic Ukrainians . Ukraine has a shared ___MASK35___ and history with neighboring nations , dating back to the 9th century and the Land of Rus . Mutual ___MASK54___ are shared among the cultures of Ukraine , Belarus , Ukrainian Cossacks and ___MASK5___ of Central Asia . Ukrainian ___MASK54___ are heavily influenced by the Eastern Orthodox Church and traditions from Slavic mythology . The Soviet ___MASK59___ unified the cultures of many unrelated nations with a common language . Ukraine ( tr . ) is a ___MASK6___ in Eastern Europe , bordered by Russia to the east and northeast , Belarus to the northwest , Poland and Slovakia to the west , Hungary , Romania , and Moldova to the southwest , and the Black ___MASK55___ and ___MASK55___ of Azov to the south and southeast , respectively . Ukraine is currently in territorial dispute with Russia over the Crimean Peninsula which Russia annexed in 2014 but which Ukraine and most of the international community recognise as Ukrainian . Including Crimea , Ukraine has an area of , making it the largest country entirely within Europe and the 46th largest country in the world . It has a population of about 44 . 5 million , making it the 32nd most populous country in the world . Evenings on a ___MASK50___ Near Dikanka ( Russian :           ) is a collection of short stories by Nikolai Gogol , written from 1831  1832 . They appeared in various magazines and were published in book form when Gogol , who had spent his life in today ' s Ukraine up to the ___MASK24___ of nineteen , was twenty - two . He put his early impressions and memories of childhood into these pictures of peasant life . In a series of letters to his mother , he asked her to write down descriptions of village customs , dress , superstitions , and old stories . These were also used as primary sources . The Fair at Sorochyntsi is the first story in the ___MASK15___ Evenings on a ___MASK50___ Near Dikanka by Ukrainian - born Russian writer Nikolai Gogol . Later in the 19th - century the story was adapted as an opera of the same name by Modest Mussorgsky ( left unfinished by the composer , and completed by other hands ) .