Hard Times: A Novel of Liberals and Radicals in 1860s Russia

Translated by Michael R. Katz

Vasily Sleptsov was a Russian social activist and writer during the politically charged 1860s, known as the "era of great reforms," and marked by Alexander II's emancipation of the serfs and the relaxation of censorship. Popular in his day, Sleptsov's contemporaries Leo Tolstoy and Anton Chekhov praised his writing: Chekhov once remarked, "Sleptsov taught me, better than most, to understand the Russian intelligent, and my own self as well."

The novella Hard Tim...