The Golovlyovs

Saltykov-Shchedrin worked on the novel The Golovlyovs for a full five years – from 1875 to 1880, and the result of such persistent labor was one of the most significant works in Russian prose of the 19th century, in which satire combines with psychological realism. The success of this novel about the slow decline and destruction of a family of dull and limited provincial landowners, in which the writer invested much of his memories of his own joyless childhood, was immense. It is enough to say that the name of the most яркого and odious of his characters, Iudushka, instantaneously became a household name in Russia and remains so to this day.