Gogol burned the second part of Dead Souls nine days before he died; in 1931 his coffin was opened, and legend says the skull was missing

On the night of 24 February 1852 Nikolai Gogol burned manuscripts containing most of the second part of Dead Souls. He later called it a mistake and said the Devil had played a joke on him^†. He took to bed, refused food, and died nine days later. He was buried at the Danilov Monastery in Moscow. In 1931 Moscow authorities decided to demolish the monastery cemetery and moved his remains to Novodevichy Cemetery. Sources give the exhumation date as late May or 31 August 1931. Wikipedia reports his body was found lying face down, which gave rise to a theory that he had been buried alive; that is legend, not established. Russian press reports say witnesses saw no skull in the coffin. A further story, also unproven, says the merchant Alexei Bakhrushin bribed monks to take the head in 1909 during a grave renovation. No source confirms where a skull went. The Danilov site had been turned into a juvenile detention facility. Gogol's grave is at Novodevichy, and the second part of Dead Souls survives only in earlier drafts.