“On the Backyards of the Great Empire” is one of V.S. Pikulyov’s early novels.
It is a panoramic narrative about the life of a provincial Russian city in the fictional, but entirely recognizable Urenskaya province in the early 20th century. The work is written in the spirit of satire by M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin, one of Valentin Savvich’s favorite authors. The concept of the novel and the image of the main hero—Prince Sergey Yakovlevich Myszhetsky—came to the writer as a result of long and careful study of archival documents of the State Duma.