Mikhail Yevgrafovich, Count Saltykov

Mikhail Yevgrafovich, Count Saltykov (born Jan. 27 [Jan. 15, old style], 1826, Spas-Ugol, Russia—died May 10 [April 28, O.S.], 1889, St. Petersburg) was a novelist of radical sympathies and one of the greatest of all Russian satirists. A sensitive boy, he was deeply shocked by his mother’s cruel treatment of peasants, which he later described in one of his most important works, Poshekhonskaya starina (1887–89; “Old Times in Poshekhona”). In 1838 he was sent to...