The Golovlyov Family

M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin is deservedly considered one of the world-class satirist writers. But at the same time, his works are often interpreted only as satire on the state structure and the ways of autocratic Russia.

In this book, an attempt is made to present readers with a different Saltykov—a master endowed with a rarest artistic gift: the gift of seeing the comic undercurrent of life. Seeing, in contrast to the classic Gogol’s wish—to look through tears unseen by the world and laughter unseen by the world, the laughter that cannot be seen through the visible tears.