Any writer can safely put the famous name of the Russian writer Saltykov-Shchedrin on a par with such writers as Mark Twain, François Rabelais, Jonathan Swift. And let Rabelais simply write the work "Gargantua and Pantagruel" for the patients of his clinic, so that people could laugh heartily at a difficult hour for them (in this he can be compared, rather, with Anton Chekhov), and Swift sent his main character into society, in which he was not originally intended by fate to be, Mikhail Evgrafovich Saltykov-Shchedrin put his heroes in their time and within the framework of their society, harshly ridiculing the order that reigned in society.
The writer could not reject the negative features of contemporary society in his work. Having received a brilliant education at that time, he turned into a clerical officer in the military department and was an eyewitness to all the negativity that reigned in society. With all his sincerity worrying about the fate of his state and the fate of its individual citizens, he boldly expressed his opinion in the pages of his works. Actively using the language of Aesop himself in his work, he splashed all his ridicule over the paper, doing it allegorically. His grotesque was born in a combination of incongruous, fantastic and completely real and topical, everyday and fabulous.
In the most famous novel by Saltykov-Shchedrin (talking about the "Golovlevs"), he describes the relationship between people closest to each other, full of self-interest and trick. His beloved son Judushka Golovlev easily betrays his own mother. The author diligently demonstrates to the reader all the baseness of the characters, which comes from the depths of human nature. And external features serve as a catalyst for their implementation.
Although the work of Saltykov-Shchedrin is fully recognized as satire, his books are full of tragic content. After all, he not only grotesquely ridicules the features of his society that are disgusting for him personally, but also shows his own concern about the scale of his stupidity. He diligently tries to help his contemporaries in solving problems, showing them all the absurdity and baseness of vices. So his satire is a very high quality weapon in his skillful hands.
