High Society

In the novella “High Society,” Sollogub attempted to present the traditions of high-society life in a new way—as conflicts and different situations. By excluding even the traditional duel from the story (along with the opposition between a hero-rebel and society) and bringing everything to a happy ending, the author demonstrated an idealization of the noble element within himself—both the everyday life and the heroes. “High Society,” in the opinion of literary critics, became “a symptom of the beginning of the decline of the social story genre” in general, and also a return by Sollogub to the very heroes and relationships he had mocked before, in particular.