The Village of Stepanchikovo and Its Inhabitants

A young man, a graduate of St. Petersburg University, receives a strange letter from his uncle, a retired colonel and owner of the village of Stepanchikovo. The young man arrives at his uncle's estate and learns that everyone in the house, including the hosts, is forced to fulfill the whims of the lodger, Fyodor Fyodorovich Opiskin... The image of the Russian Tartuffe occupied Dostoevsky during the years he spent in Siberian exile. After receiving full amnesty and permission to publish in 1857, the writer took on this plot. He had high hopes for the story, hoping to strengthen his position in literature. However, it was received coolly by contemporaries; much later, when Dostoevsky's work could be judged retrospectively, his early story became extremely popular, and the name of the main character became a common noun. In the character of Fyodor Fyodorovich Opiskin, one can see the heroes of Dostoevsky's later works, who painfully experience their humiliated state while being filled with ambition.