The Petty Demon

At the beginning of the 20th century, the Russian symbolist Fyodor Sologub’s novel (1863–1927) had the effect of a bomb going off and made the author famous. Sologub himself wrote that “everything anecdotal, everyday, psychological in my novel is based on very precise observations, and I had enough ‘material’ around me for my novel.” The hero of “The Petty Devil”—Peredonov, who became a kind of symbol of mediocrity—and his tormentor, a spirit-bug that beats and tortures him, still serve today as a terrible warning to humanity.