Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin

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Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin

Mikhail Yevgrafovich Saltykov-Shchedrin (Russian: Михаи́л Евгра́фович Салтыко́в-Щедрин, IPA: [mʲɪxɐˈil jɪvˈɡrafəvʲɪtɕ səltɨˈkof ɕːɪˈdrʲin]; 27 January 1826 – 10 May 1889 ) was a name that still carries weight, even now. Born Mikhail Yevgrafovich Saltykov, he penned his most biting truths under the pen name of Nikolai Shchedrin (Russian: Николай Щедрин). He was a writer, a journalist, a short story writer, a playwright, and for a significant portion of his life, a civil servant . A proper Russian satirist of the 19th century, a time when such things were as dangerous as they were necessary.

He lived through the death throes of serfdom and the awkward, often brutal, birth of something new. After the poet Nikolay Nekrasov shuffled off this mortal coil, Saltykov-Shchedrin took the helm of the Russian literary magazine Otechestvenniye Zapiski . He steered it until the Tsarist government finally clamped down and banned it in 1884. A fitting end, perhaps, for a publication that dared to print his words.

In his writing, Saltykov mastered a blend that was both starkly real and wildly, disturbingly fantastical. He could peel back the skin of society to reveal the rot beneath, then dress it up in the grotesque finery of satire. His most enduring works, the sprawling family chronicle The Golovlyov Family (1880) and the biting political allegory The History of a Town (1870), are more than just novels; they’re dissections. They remain critical pieces of 19th-century fiction , and Saltykov himself is rightly seen as a titan of Russian literary Realism .

Biography

Mikhail Saltykov was born on 27 January 1826, in the village of Spas-Ugol. It’s now part of the Taldomsky District in Russia, a place that likely held no magic for a boy destined to dissect the very soul of his nation. He was one of eight children born to Yevgraf Vasilievich Saltykov and Olga Mikhaylovna Saltykova (née Zabelina). His father hailed from an ancient, if somewhat faded, noble line, the Saltykovs, tracing their roots back to the Morozov boyar family. They even shared a Polish Sołtyk coat of arms . It’s a lineage that produced tsars and tsarsas, a fact that likely held little comfort for Mikhail.

His mother, Olga, was the heiress to a considerable fortune from a Moscow merchant family. At the time of Mikhail’s birth, his father was fifty, his mother a mere twenty-five. He spent his early years on the family estate in Spasskoye, a region known for its rural isolation, the very landscape that would later fuel his observations on provincial life.

He remembered serfdom with a visceral disgust. “In my childhood and teenage years I witnessed serfdom at its worst,” he recalled, his words echoing through the characters of his later novel, Old Years in Poshekhonye. He saw how it poisoned every stratum of society, stripping everyone of dignity, breeding a culture of fear and deception. The Saltykov household itself was a grim testament to this atmosphere. His father, a weak and pious man, was utterly dominated by his despotic wife. She instilled fear in the servants and her own children, an oppressive dynamic that would find its chilling echo in The Golovlyov Family. Olga Mikhaylovna, however, recognized a spark in her son, treating him as her favorite.

Despite this, the Saltykov home was not one of warmth. Quarrels were frequent, love and care were scarce. Mikhail, though afforded a degree of freedom, felt the gnawing ache of loneliness and neglect. He also recalled a peculiar detachment from nature, the children confined to the house, knowing their ‘animals and birds only as boiled and fried.’ This lack of natural imagery in his work, a curious omission for a Russian writer, can perhaps be traced back to these formative years.

Education

Mikhail’s early education was, to put it mildly, haphazard. Yet, he was a boy of remarkable perception. By the age of six, he was fluent in French and German. His Russian literacy was shaped by a serf painter named Pavel Sokolov and a local clergyman. He devoured books, citing the Gospel , which he read at eight, as a significant influence. His childhood companions included Sergey Yuriev, who would later become a notable literary figure.

In 1834, his sister Nadezhda, having graduated from the Moscow Ekaterininsky college, arranged for his education to be overseen by her friend, Avdotya Vasilevskaya, a graduate of the same institute. Other tutors included a clergyman who taught him Latin and a student named Matvey Salmin.

At ten, Saltykov entered the third class of the Moscow Institute for sons of the nobility, bypassing the first two years. He remained there until 1838, then moved on to the prestigious Tsarskoye Selo Lyceum in Saint Petersburg . Among his peers was Prince Aleksey Lobanov-Rostovsky, who would later become Minister of Foreign Affairs. The education at the Lyceum, however, was notoriously poor. “The information taught to us was scant, sporadic and all but meaningless… It was not so much an education as such, but a part of social privilege, the one that draws the line through life: above are you and me, people of leisure and power, beneath – just one single word: muzhik ,” he wrote in his Letters to Auntie. A stark assessment of an institution meant to shape the nation’s elite.

It was during his Lyceum years that Saltykov began to write poetry, translating works by Lord Byron and Heinrich Heine . He was even designated the ‘heir to Pushkin’ by the Lyceum’s tradition. His first poem, “The Lyre,” a tribute to the great Russian poet, was published in Biblioteka Dlya Chteniya in 1841. Eight more verses found their way into Sovremennik in 1844–45. He frequented Mikhail Yazykov’s literary circle, occasionally graced by the presence of Vissarion Belinsky , whose critical essays deeply impressed him.

Upon graduating in 1844, Saltykov, a top student, was immediately assigned to the chancellery of the Ministry of Defense. This, ironically, dashed his hopes of attending Saint Petersburg University . That same year, he became involved with Otechestvennye zapiski and Sovremennik, contributing reviews of children’s literature and textbooks. His critiques were sharp, bearing the unmistakable imprint of Belinsky’s influence.

This was also the period when Saltykov fell under the sway of Socialist ideas emanating from France. “Brought up by Belinsky’s articles, I naturally drifted towards the Westernizers ’ camp,” he later recalled, “but not to the major trend of it which was dominant in Russian literature at the time, promoting German philosophy , but to this tiny circle that felt instinctively drawn towards France - the country of Saint-Simon , Fourier … and, in particular, George Sand … Such sympathies only grew stronger after 1848.” He formed friendships with the critic Valerian Maykov and the economist Vladimir Milyutin, and became closely associated with the Petrashevsky circle . “How easily we lived and what deep faith we had in the future, what single-mindedness and unity of hopes there was, giving us life!” he reminisced, speaking of Mikhail Petrashevsky as “a dear, unforgettable friend and teacher.” Little did they know how precarious that ’easy living’ truly was.

Literary Career

Saltykov’s literary journey began in earnest in 1847 with his novella Contradictions. The title itself was a manifesto, highlighting the chasm between noble ideals and the brutal realities of life. It was followed by A Complicated Affair (1848), a social novella that bore the hallmarks of Gogol in its plot and character archetypes, grappling with social injustice and the individual’s helplessness against it. The novella garnered praise from Nikolai Dobrolyubov , who noted its “heartfelt sympathy for destitute men… awakening in one humane feelings and manly thoughts,” and Nikolai Chernyshevsky , who called it a book “that has created a stir and is of much interest to people of the new generation.”

However, it was the publication of Contradictions that triggered Saltykov’s banishment to Vyatka . The authorities, still reeling from the French Revolution of 1848 , overreacted. On 26 April 1848, Tsar Nicholas I ordered his arrest and deportation. Exile was a common fate for those who dared to question the established order.

His initial months in exile were spent copying official documents, a soul-crushing task. He was then appointed a special envoy to the Vyatka governor, tasked with investigating petty crimes, bribery, and embezzlement. Saltykov desperately sought to escape what he grimly termed his ‘Vyatka captivity,’ but his requests were met with the infuriatingly standard reply: “would be premature.” The prospect of spending the rest of his life in this provincial backwater was a prospect that “makes my hair bristle,” he confessed in a letter to his brother.

Yet, exile wasn’t entirely devoid of human connection. The local elite treated Saltykov with a degree of warmth, and he became a welcome guest in their homes. It was in the house of Vice-Governor Boltin that he met Elizaveta Apollonovna, who would later become his wife. Perhaps in this bleak landscape, he found a strange sort of inspiration, a raw material for the sharp observations that would define his work.

During his time in Vyatka, Saltykov became preoccupied with the dire state of female education. He recognized the desperate need for decent history textbooks in Russia and decided to write one himself. A Brief History of Russia, a concise 40-page compilation, was written during a vacation and intended for serial publication in Vyatka. A seemingly modest endeavor, but one that speaks to his desire to impart knowledge, even in the most restrictive circumstances.

The arrest of the Petrashevsky Circle members in 1848 led to Saltykov being summoned to the capital to provide testimony. He managed to convince the authorities that he harbored no treasonous intentions and was allowed to return to Vyatka. In 1850, he was appointed a councillor in the local government, a position that involved extensive travel across the province, often dealing with the affairs of the Old Believers . His investigations took him through the governorates of Vyatka, Perm , Kazan , Nizhny Novgorod , and Yaroslavl . In 1850, he organized the Vyatka agricultural exhibition, a significant event that provided him with invaluable material for his future satires. It seems even in exile, the writer was diligently gathering ammunition.

Provincial Sketches

The death of Tsar Nicholas I in 1855 marked a shift in the country’s atmosphere. By November 1855, Saltykov was granted permission to leave Vyatka, with the new governor, Lanskoy, rumored to be instrumental in this decision. He returned to Saint Petersburg in January 1856 and was assigned to the Interior Ministry. By this time, he had written many of the stories and essays that would later be compiled as Provincial Sketches. These narratives centered on the fictitious town of Krutogorsk, a thinly veiled symbol of Russian serfdom.

Ivan Turgenev , an early reader, was unimpressed, and perhaps wisely, given the stringent censorship, Nikolai Nekrasov initially refused to publish the work in Sovremennik. However, in August 1856, Mikhail Katkov ’s journal, The Russian Messenger , began serializing Provincial Sketches under the pseudonym N. Shchedrin. The book, imbued with anti-serfdom sentiment and a scathing critique of provincial bureaucracy, was an immediate sensation. Saltykov was hailed as the successor to Nikolai Gogol . Even Taras Shevchenko wrote in his diary, “I’m in awe… Oh immortal Gogol, you must now be a happy man now to see such a genius emerging as your follower.” In 1857, Sovremennik finally acknowledged the work, with Dobrolyubov and Chernyshevsky offering praise, albeit with their characteristic interpretation of Saltykov’s aims: “aiming at the undermining the Empire’s foundations.” They saw rebellion where he perhaps only saw the need for honest observation.

In 1857, The Russian Messenger published Pazukhin’s Death, a play that resonated with the themes of Provincial Sketches. The play’s production was swiftly banned by the censors with the verdict: “Characters presented there are set to prove our society lies in the state of total moral devastation.” Another play, Shadows (1862–1865), a critique of careerism and bureaucratic amorality, remained in archives and was only published and staged in 1914, long after Saltykov’s death.

Despite the left radicals’ attempts to align him with their revolutionary fervor, Saltykov’s aim was not necessarily to “undermine the Empire’s foundations.” Upon his return to Saint Petersburg, he ascended to significant administrative positions. He genuinely believed that “all honest men should help the government in defeating serfdom apologists still clinging to their rights.” The acclaim for his literary work never tempted him to abandon his civil service career. Practical considerations played a role. In 1856, he married Elizaveta Boltina, the daughter of a Vyatka vice-governor. His mother’s financial support dwindled, while his own expenses increased. Until 1858, he served in the Ministry of Internal Affairs. After presenting a report on the state of the Russian police , he was appointed deputy governor of Ryazan , where he earned the moniker “the vice-[Robespierre].”

Arriving in Ryazan in April 1858, Saltykov eschewed formality, traveling in an ordinary carriage, much to the surprise of the local elite who knew him as the author of Provincial Sketches. He settled into a modest house, actively engaging with the community. His primary focus was on educating local minor officials in basic grammar, often spending late nights proofreading their convoluted reports. In 1862, he was transferred to Tver, where he frequently acted as governor. There, he proved a staunch advocate for the 1861 reforms , personally initiating legal action against landowners accused of mistreating peasants.

All the while, his literary output continued. Between 1860 and 1862, he published numerous sketches and short stories, some later collected in Innocent Stories (1857–1863). These works demonstrated what Maxim Gorky would later describe as “a talent for talking politics through domesticities.” His Satires In Prose (1859–1862) revealed a growing frustration with the apathy of the oppressed. “One is hardly to be expected to engage oneself in self-development when one’s only thought revolves around just one wish: not to die of hunger,” he articulated. During these three years, he also penned many articles on agrarian reforms, primarily for Moskovskye Vedomosty, where he frequently clashed with the journalist Vladimir Rzhevsky.

Sovremennik

In 1862, Saltykov resigned from government service, intending to establish his own magazine in Moscow. However, the Ministry of Education’s Special Committee, chaired by Prince D.A. Obolensky, denied him the necessary permission. Early in 1863, Saltykov relocated to Saint Petersburg to join Nekrasov’s Sovremennik. The journal had been significantly weakened by the death of Dobrolyubov and the arrest of Chernyshevsky. Within its pages, Saltykov published the initial sketches of his Pompadours cycle and became involved with Svistok (The Whistle), a satirical supplement, using pseudonyms such as N. Shchedrin, K. Turin, and Mikhail Zmiev-Mladentsev.

His series of articles titled Our Social Life (1863–1864), which explored “new tendencies in Russian nihilism ,” ignited a polemic with the equally radical journal Russkoye Slovo. Saltykov first lampooned Dmitry Pisarev ’s unexpected call for the Russian intelligentsia to focus more on natural sciences. Pisarev retaliated in “Flowers of Innocent Humor” in Russkoye Slovo, suggesting Saltykov was promoting “laughter for good digestion’s sake.” Saltykov, in turn, accused Pisarev of isolationism and elitism . This heated exchange, alongside the fervent discussion surrounding Chernyshevsky’s novel What Is to Be Done? , was famously termed “raskol in Russian nihilism” by Fyodor Dostoyevsky .

On another front, Saltykov engaged in a literary battle with the Dostoyevsky brothers’ magazine, Grazhdanin. When Fyodor Dostoyevsky posited that the radical movement in Russia had become lifeless and dogmatic following Dobrolyubov’s death and Chernyshevsky’s imprisonment, Saltykov branded him and his fellow pochvenniks as ‘reactionaries.’ Ultimately, a rift with Maxim Antonovich , supported by Grigory Eliseev , led Saltykov-Shchedrin to depart from the journal. Only a fraction of the stories and sketches he produced during this tumultuous period found their way into his later collections, such as Innocent Stories, Sign of the Time, and Pompadours.

Dependent on Sovremennik’s meager salary, Saltykov sought supplementary work and frequently clashed with Nekrasov, even threatening to abandon literature. According to Avdotya Panayeva ’s memoirs, “those were the times when his moods darkened, and I noticed a new habit of his developing - this jerky movement of neck, as if he was trying to free himself from some unseen tie, the habit which stayed with him for the rest of his life.” Financial difficulties eventually compelled Saltykov to return to government service. In November 1864, he was appointed head of the treasury department in Penza . Two years later, he moved to Tula to assume the same post, followed by a transfer to Ryazan. With the backing of his Lyceum friend Mikhail Reitern, then Minister of Finance, Saltykov implemented aggressive finance revision policies, making numerous enemies within the administrative circles of Tula, Ryazan, and Penza. According to [Alexander Skabichevsky], who interviewed officials who worked under Saltykov, “he was a rare kind of boss. Even though his frightful barking was making people wince, nobody feared him and everybody loved him - mostly for his caring for his subordinates’ needs and also the tendency to overlook people’s minor weaknesses and faults when those were not interfering with work.”

Eventually, the governor of Ryazan lodged an informal complaint, which reached Count Shuvalov , Chief of Staff of the Special Corps of Gendarmes . Shuvalov issued a note stating that Saltykov, as a senior state official, had “promoted ideas contradicting the needs of maintaining law and order” and was “always in conflict with people of local governments, criticizing and even sabotaging their orders.” On July 14, 1868, Saltykov retired, marking the end of the career of “one of the strangest officials in Russian history.” Years later, he confessed to the historian M. Semevsky that he wished to erase those years from his memory. However, when Semevsky countered that “only his thorough knowledge of every possible stage of the Russian bureaucratic hierarchy made him what he was,” the writer had to concede the point.

Otechestvennye Zapiski

On July 1, 1866, Sovremennik was shut down. In the autumn, Nekrasov approached the publisher Andrey Krayevsky and leased Otechestvennye Zapiski . In September 1868, Saltykov joined the revamped editorial team as head of the journalistic department. When Saltykov’s health deteriorated in December 1874, forcing him to travel abroad for treatment, Nekrasov lamented in an April 1875 letter to Pavel Annenkov : “This journalism thing has always been tough for us and now it lies in tatters. Saltykov carried it all manly and bravely and we all tried our best to follow suit.” He later wrote to Annenkov, “This was the only magazine that had its own face… Most talented people were coming to Otechestvennye Zapiski as if it were their home. They trusted my taste and my common sense never to begrudge my editorial cuts. In ‘OZ’ there were published weak things, but stupid things - never.”

In 1869, Saltykov’s Signs of the Times and Letters About the Province were published, conveying the message that the reforms had failed and Russia remained a land of absolute monarchy where the peasant had no rights. “The bars have fallen but Russia’s heart gave not a single twitch. Serfdom has been abolished, but landlords rejoiced,” he wrote.

Then, in 1870, came The History of a Town (История одного города). This was a grotesque, politically charged novel chronicling the tragicomic history of the fictional Foolsville, a thinly veiled caricature of the Russian Empire. It depicted a succession of monstrous rulers tormenting their hapless subjects, a satire on the very fabric of Russian statehood, rife with mismanagement, tyranny, and the apathy of the populace. The novel concluded with a devastating “it” that swept everything away, “making the history stop”—a passage widely interpreted as a call for radical political change. The series Pompadours and Pompadouresses (published in English as The Pompadours, Помпадуры и помпадурши, 1863–1874) served as a thematic companion to The History of a Town, offering real-life illustrations to the fantastical chronicle.

The History of a Town stirred considerable controversy. Alexey Suvorin accused the author of deliberately distorting Russian history and insulting the Russian people. Saltykov defended his work: “By showing how people live under the yoke of madness I was hoping to invoke in a reader not mirth but most bitter feelings… It is not the history of the state as a whole that I make fun of, but a certain state of things.”

In 1873, The Tashkenters Clique (Господа Ташкентцы) was released. The term “Tashkenters” was Saltykov’s invention for administrators sent to quell peasant unrest in remote regions of the Empire. This work was a sharp jab at right-wingers who advocated brutal suppression. In 1877, In the Spheres of Temperance and Accuracy appeared, a collection of satirical sketches featuring characters from classical Russian literature—works by Fonvizin , Griboyedov , Gogol, and others—placed within a contemporary political context.

Later Years

The Well-Meant Speeches (Благонамеренные речи, 1876) introduced characters from the burgeoning Russian bourgeoisie . On January 2, 1881, Saltykov wrote to the lawyer and author Yevgeny Utin : “I took a look at the family, the state, the property and found out that none of such things exist. And that those very principles for the sake of which freedoms have been granted, were not respected as principles any more, even by those who seemed to hold them.” The Well-Meant Speeches originally included several stories about the Golovlyov family. In 1880, Saltykov-Shchedrin extracted these to form the basis of his most famous novel, a profound depiction of the decline of the landowning gentry.

The Golovlyov Family (Господа Головлёвы, 1880; also translated as A Family of Noblemen) is a devastatingly bleak study of the family as the supposed cornerstone of society. It charts the moral and physical disintegration of three generations of a Russian gentry family. Central to the narrative is Porfiry ‘Little Judas’ Golovlyov, a character whose nickname (Iudushka, in Russian) became synonymous with hollow hypocrisy and self-destructive egoism, leading to moral decay and psychological fragmentation.

In the 1870s, Saltykov sold his Moscow estate and purchased one near Oranienbaum , outside Saint Petersburg, which he affectionately called ‘my Mon Repos ’. However, his foray into landownership proved unsuccessful, resulting in significant financial losses. Stories loosely based on this experience later appeared in the novel Mon Repos Haven (Убежище Монрепо, 1879) and the sketch collection All the Year Round (Круглый год). Both works attacked the nascent foundations of Russian capitalism. “Fatherland is a pie - that’s the idea those narrow, obnoxious minds follow,” he wrote. The latter collection remained unfinished due to the intensified censorship following the assassination of Alexander II .

Between 1875 and 1885, Saltykov frequently traveled to Germany, Switzerland, and France for medical treatment. These excursions inspired the sketch series Abroad (За рубежом, 1880–1881), which expressed skepticism about the superficial Western veneer of respectability, suggesting it masked horrors similar to those prevalent in Russia (symbolized as The Boy Without Pants, contrasting with Europe’s The Boy in Pants). In 1882, Letters to Auntie (Письма к тётеньке) was published, a satire on society and its cultural elite, written under the oppressive atmosphere of censorship.

In 1883, critically ill, Saltykov published Modern Idyll (Современная идиллия), a novel he had begun in 1877–1878, targeting members of the intelligentsia eager to demonstrate their loyalty to the authorities. This was followed by The Poshekhonye Stories (Пошехонские рассказы, 1883), Motley Letters (Пёстрые письма, 1884), and Unfinished Talks (Недоконченные беседы, 1886). By this time, Otechestvennye Zapiski was under immense pressure from censors, with Shchedrin’s prose being their primary target. The May 1874 issue containing The Well-Meant Speeches was ordered destroyed, and several other publications were delayed pending the removal of Saltykov’s contributions. Between 1874 and 1879, Otechestvennye Zapiski faced 18 censorial sanctions, all related to Shchedrin’s work, with many pieces (including Well-Meant Speeches, Letters to Auntie, and numerous fairy tales) being banned outright. “It is despicable times that we are living through… and it takes a lot of strength not to give up,” Saltykov wrote.

The closure of Otechestvennye Zapiski in 1884 was a devastating blow to Saltykov. “The possibility to talk with my readers has been taken away from me and this pain is stronger than any other,” he lamented. Vladimir Korolenko observed in 1889, “The whole of the Russian press suffered from the Otechestvenny Zapiski’s closure… Where there’s been a lively tissue now there is a chasm of emptiness. And Shchedrin’s life has been curtailed, probably, for many years, by this ’excision’.” Saltykov-Shchedrin’s final works appeared in Vestnik Evropy and Russkye Vedomosti. These included a collection of satirical fables and tales , Fairy Tales for Children of a Fair Age (better known as Fables), and a series of sketches, Small Things in Life (Мелочи жизни, 1881–1887), which presented realistic vignettes of ordinary people crushed by the drudgery of daily existence. Saltykov’s last publication was the semi-autobiographical novel Old Years in Poshekhonye (Пошехонская старина), serialized from 1887 to 1889 in Vestnik Evropy. He had planned another work, Forgotten Words, intending to remind readers of concepts like “honour, fatherland, humanity,” but never began it.

Mikhail Evgraphovich Saltykov-Shchedrin died of a stroke in Saint Petersburg. In accordance with his wishes, he was interred in the Volkovo Cemetery , near the grave of Ivan Turgenev .

Legacy

Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin is widely regarded as the most significant satirist in Russian literary history. Critic and biographer Maria Goryachkina asserted that he created a “satirical encyclopedia” of contemporary Russian life. His targets evolved from the oppressive institution of serfdom and its corrupting influence on society to, after its abolition, the pervasive corruption, bureaucratic incompetence, opportunistic intellectualism, and the avarice and amorality of those in power. Crucially, he also castigated the apathy, subservience, and social inertia of the Russian populace. His satirical collection Fables and his two major novels, The History of a Town and The Golovlyov Family , are universally acclaimed as his masterpieces. In 1909, Maxim Gorky wrote, “The importance of his satire is immense, first for… its almost clairvoyant vision of the path the Russian society had to travel - from 1860s to nowadays.”

James Wood recognized Saltykov-Shchedrin as a precursor to modernists like Knut Hamsun :

The closer Shchedrin gets close to Porphyry, the more unknowable he actually becomes. In this sense, Porphyry is a modernist prototype: the character who lacks an audience, the alienated actor. The hypocrite who does not know that he is one, and really be told that he is one by anyone around him, is something of a revolutionary type of character, for he has no “true” knowable self, no “stable” ego… Around the turn of the twentieth century, Knut Hamsun, a novelist strongly influenced by Dostoevsky and the Russian novel, would invent a new kind of character: the lunatic heroes of his novels Hunger and Mysteries go around telling falsely incriminating stories about themselves and acting badly when they have no obvious reason to. <…> The line from Dostoevsky, through Shchedrin, and on to Hamsun, is visible.

Soviet critics lauded Saltykov-Shchedrin as a “true revolutionary,” though they noted a perceived “fault” in his thinking: he “failed to recognize the historically progressive role of capitalism and never understood the importance of the emerging proletariat .” Karl Marx , who reportedly knew Russian and held Saltykov-Shchedrin in high regard, read Haven in Mon Repos (1878–1879) and found it lacking. “The last section, ‘Warnings’, is weak and the author in general seems to be not very strong on positivity,” he commented. Marx also read other works by Saltykov-Shchedrin, including The Gentlemen from Tashkent and Diary of a Provincial in St. Petersburg. Among Russian authors, Marx particularly valued Pushkin, Gogol, and Saltykov-Shchedrin.

Some contemporaries, such as Nikolai Pisarev and Alexei Suvorin , dismissed Saltykov-Shchedrin as someone who engaged in “’laughing for laughter’s sake’.” Vladimir Korolenko disagreed, viewing Shchedrin’s laughter as an indispensable element of Russian life. “Shchedrin, he’s still laughing, people were saying, by way of reproach… Thankfully, yes, no matter how hard it was for him to do this, in the most morbid times of our recent history this laughter was heard… One had to have a great moral power to make others laugh, while suffering deeply (as he did) from all the grieves of those times,” Korolenko argued.

According to D.S.Mirsky , a significant portion of Saltykov’s output constitutes rather unremarkable satirical journalism , often lacking narrative structure and existing somewhere between the classical “character” sketch and the contemporary feuilleton . While immensely popular in its time, much of it has lost its impact due to its focus on now-obsolete social conditions, requiring extensive commentary for modern readers. Mirsky considered The History of a Town – a parody of Russian history condensed into the microcosm of a provincial town, with its governors representing Russian sovereigns and ministers – to be the culmination of Saltykov’s early period. He lauded The Golovlyov Family as the bleakest book in Russian literature, achieving its effect through “the simplest means without any theatrical, melodramatic, or atmospheric effects.” Mirsky singled out Porfiry Golovlyov, “Little Judas,” as “the empty and mechanical hypocrite who cannot stop talking unctuous and meaningless humbug, not for any inner need or outer profit, but because his tongue is in need of constant exercise.”

Most of Saltykov’s later works were written in what the satirist himself termed Aesopian . This stylistic choice allowed him to circumvent censors during periods of political oppression and disseminate radical ideas—a source of considerable pride for him. Mirsky, however, described this as “one continuous circumlocution because of censorship and requires a constant reading commentary.” The reliance on Aesopic language, according to Sofia Kovalevskaya , was one reason Saltykov-Shchedrin never achieved the same international acclaim as his contemporaries Turgenev, Dostoyevsky, and Tolstoy. The brilliant mathematician remarked in 1889, “It is unbelievable, how well we’ve learned to read between the lines in Russia.” Another factor, Kovalevskaya suggested, was the nature of Saltykov’s chosen genre: his conviction “has always been a satire, spiced with fantasy, not far removed from Rabelais , the kind of literature that’s tightly bound to its own national soil… Tears are the same wherever we go, but each nation laughs in its own way.”

Saltykov’s writing style, according to D.S.Mirsky, was rooted in the inferior journalistic style of the era, largely originating with Osip Senkovsky , which “today invariably produces an impression of painfully elaborate vulgarity.” Many other critics, including Goryachkina, disagreed, praising the author’s vivid, rich language and his mastery of both stark realism (The Golovlyov Family, Old Times in Poshekhonye) and satirical grotesque blended with fantasy. Biographer [Sergey Krivenko], a member of the Narodnik movement (which Saltykov often opposed), noted Saltykov’s unique style: “It is difficult to assess his works using the established criteria. It’s a mix of a variety of genres: poetry and documentary report, epics and satire, tragedy and comedy. In the process of reading it is impossible to decide what exactly it is, but the general impression is invariably strong, as of something very lively and harmonic. Ignoring the established formats, Saltykov was driven by two things: current stream of new ideas and those lofty ideals he’s been aspiring to.” Krivenko observed that Saltykov sometimes repeated himself, but defended this by citing the necessity of addressing “hot” issues—“things which in the course of decades were in their own right repeating themselves with such damning monotony.” In 1895, Krivenko wrote, “There are not many writers in Rus whose very name would give that much to one’s mind and heart, and who’d leave such a vast literary heritage, rich and diverse both in essence and in form, written in a very special language which even in his lifetime became known as ‘saltykovian’.” He concluded, “Saltykov’s gift was no lesser than that of Gogol, neither in originality nor in itspower.”

Saltykov-Shchedrin remained a controversial figure, frequently criticized for alleged “lack of patriotism” and negativity. He never saw himself as a purveyor of negativity, consistently professing his belief in the strength of the common man as the embodiment of democratic principles. In 1882, feeling despondent over critical responses to his work, he expressed a pessimistic view of his literary career. Ivan Turgenev quickly offered reassurance: “The writer who is most hated, is most loved, too. You’d have known none of this, had you remained M.E. Saltykov, a mere hereditary Russian aristocrat. But you are Saltykov-Shchedrin, a writer who happened to draw a distinctive line in our literature: that’s why you are either hated or loved, depending [on who reads you]. Such is the true ‘outcome’ of your life in literature, and you must be pleased with it.”

Despite his keen insights and meticulous attention to detail, Saltykov was less inclined to delve deeply into individual character psychology, even though he created memorable figures. His focus remained on the general and the typical, analyzing social trends, collective impulses, and what he termed ‘herd instincts in a modern man,’ often resorting to schematic representations and caricatures.

In his later years, Saltykov-Shchedrin became a significant influence on the radical youth of the era. In 1885–1886, Alexander Ulyanov , brother of Vladimir Lenin , and his sister Anna were among the student delegations who visited the ailing writer. Saltykov-Shchedrin was indeed considered “the revolutionary youth’s favorite writer.” Lenin himself held the writer in high regard, frequently invoking Saltykov-Shchedrin’s characters, particularly Iudushka, to label his adversaries—whether they were Russian landlords, emerging capitalists, Tsarist officials, or even his associate Trotzky .

Selected Works

Novels

• The History of a Town (История одного города, 1870)
• Ubezhishche Monrepo (Убежище Монрепо, 1879, Mon Repos Haven), not translated into English.
• The Golovlyov Family (Господа Головлёвы, 1880)
• Sovremennaya idilliya (Современная идиллия, 1883, Modern Idyll), not translated into English.
• Poshekhonskaya starina (Пошехонская старина, 1889, Old Years in Poshekhonye), not translated into English.

Stories and sketches

• Provincial Sketches (also: Tchinovnicks: Sketches Of Provincial Life, Губернские очерки, 1856)
• The Pompadours (also: Pompadours and Pompadouresses and Messieurs et Mesdames Pompadours, Помпадуры и Помпадурши, 1863–1874)

Other

• Pazukhin’s Death (Смерть Пазухина, 1857, play)
• Fables (or Tales, Сказки для детей изрядного возраста, 1869–1886)
• The Story of How a Muzhik Fed Two Generals (The How a Muzhik Fed Two Officials, Повесть о том, как один мужик двух генералов прокормил, 1869)

English Translations

The Golovlyov Family

• The Gollovlev Family, Jarrold & Sons , 1910.
• A Family of Noblemen (The Gentlemen Golovliov), Boni & Liveright , 1917.
• The Golovlyov Family, Everyman’s Library , J. M. Dent & Sons, 1934.
• The Golovlovs, Signet Classics , The New American Library , 1961.
• The Golovlyov Family, Penguin Classics , 1995. ISBN 0140444904
• The Golovlyov Family, The Overlook Press , 2013. ISBN 146830156X

The History of a Town

• The History of a Town, Willem A. Meeuws, Oxford , 1980. ISBN 0902672398
• The History of a Town, or, The Chronicle of Foolov, Ardis , 1982. ISBN 0882336118

Fables

• Fables by Shchedrin, Chatto and Windus , 1931.
• Tales from M. Saltykov-Shchedrin, Foreign Languages Publishing House , Moscow, 1952.

Pazukhin’s Death

• The Death of Pazukhin: A Play in Four Acts, Brentano’s , 1924.

• Russian Comedy of the Nikolaian Era. Pazukhin’s Death: A Comedy in Four Acts, Harwood Academic Publishers, 1997. ISBN 9057020483

• Tchinovnicks: Sketches of Provincial Life (Selections from Gubernskie ocherki), 1861.

• The Village Priest and Other Stories from the Russian of Militsina & Saltikov, T. Fisher Unwin, 1918.

• The Pompadours: A Satire on the Art of Government, Ardis, 1982. ISBN 0882337432

• The Humour of Russia, London: W. Scott, 1895.

• How the two Ivans quarrelled : and other Russian comic stories, Oneworld Classics, 2011.