From the school literature course, everyone knows what derogatory criticism V. G. Belinsky subjected Gogol to for the book “Selected Passages from Correspondence with Friends.” But all the correspondence and Gogol’s unsent response, first of all, are almost unknown to the modern reader. And it is not surprising: this letter was first published almost sixty years ago in the complete works of Gogol and was almost never mentioned in either scientific or popular science literature. We decided to fill this gap by publishing the thoughts of the famous Russian researcher of the life and work of Gogol, Vladimir Voropaev, about the intellectual battle between the two brightest representatives of their era and the letters themselves. We think that our readers will find the debate between worldviews, which took place more than a century and a half ago, relevant today.