The Black Hen, or The Underground Dwellers

Antony Pogorelsky (real name Alexey Perovsky) wrote the story “The Black Hen, or Underground Dwellers” for his ten-year-old nephew Alyosha in 1829. Much later, in a letter to Alexey, the uncle admitted that the story presented in the fairy tale was not fiction, but a “terrible true story” that happened to him himself in childhood. Interestingly, Alyosha Tolstoy—whose upbringing was Pogorelsky’s main concern in life—grew up and became a famous writer himself, Alexey Konstantinovich Tolstoy.