The Golovlyov Family

The Golovyov Family is a thought-provoking and powerfully written novel. Recognized as a classic since it first publication in Russia in 1880, it recounts the history of a family of landowners through three generations. In a letter written shortly after the book’s publication, the author reflected that "I wrote The Golovyov Family as an attack on the family principal."

As Russian scholar Carl Proffer wrote: "Gogol has been passed from school to school for thirteen decades. Even Bulgakov, who regarded Saltykov-Schhedrin as his teacher, who is the most satirical writer after Saltykov, and whose main works were unpublished until ten years ago, has been written about by representatives of many different critical sects. That Saltykov’s works have not had this kind of appeal is somewhat puzzling…Even a Freudian novice could work Oedipal themes out of the autobiographical elements in The Golovlyov Family, and the Tartu University school could draw complex diagrams to show how The Golovyov Family is that most wonderful of all things, a "unified whole." It is time that Saltykov stopped being the exclusive property of critics whose primary concerns are sociological or historical. As the reader of The Golovlyov Family will see—with considerable pleasure—Saltykov’s prose has much more to offer than not."