N. V. Gogol wrote about "Dead Souls" as a "parade of evil caricatures... and if anyone had seen the monsters that emerged from my pen... he would have surely shuddered". In the gallery of caricatured images of landowners that parade before the reader, according to the author, "all of Russia" is embodied. M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin's novel "The Story of One City," dubbed a "satirical encyclopedia of Russian life," is presented through the images of the foolish city officials of Glupov with vivid speaking names. Both works are written in the spirit of biting satire, where irony and humor reach the grotesque and real events are replaced by incredibly fantastical ones.