Ivan Vyzhigin

A Moral-Satirical Novel

Faddei Bulgarin, Michael R. Katz

• Publisher: Northern Illinois University Press
• Year: 2025
• eBook ISBN: 9781501782633
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Russian Literary Criticism
• Index: Literature

With his translation, Michael R. Katz makes available the first bestselling novel in Russia, Faddei Bulgarin's social satire Ivan Vyzhigin (1829). The novel is an amusing picaresque filled with local color and comical portraits, narrated by its hero, an orphaned peasant who relates his many adventures as a young man. The book is remarkable for its accurate descriptions of nineteenth-century Russian day-to-day reality: the clothes, food, surroundings, and characters that Ivan Vyzhigin encounters. Its publication ushered in the age of prose in nineteenth-century Russian literature, and Bulgarin was hailed by Pushkin as a major prose writer.

As William Mills Todd III notes in his introduction, Ivan Vyzhigin opens a window onto what Russians were reading between the late eighteenth century and the 1917 Revolution. Along with Todd's introduction, Katz's annotations provide literary, historical, and cultural context.

Table of contents

• Translator’s Note and Acknowledgments
• Introduction: The Picaresque Adventures of Faddei Bulgarin and His Ivan Vyzhigin
• Preface to Novel
• 1. The Little Orphan, or a Portrait of Humanity in the Manner of the Flemish School
• 2. Mr. Gologordovsky and His Family
• 3. Love
• 4. Matchmaking
• 5. The Ball and Abduction
• 6. Marriage and Parting with the Newlyweds
• 7. A Rich Yid. Sources of His Wealth.
• 8. Meeting a Civil Servant, Returning from a Certain Place, with the Other One Going to a Certain Place. I Leave the Yid.
• 9. An Unexpected Meeting. A Transformation. My Aunt. My Education.
• 10. Examination in Boarding School. A Tempter. My Aunt’s New Friend. Something Like First Love. Departure from Moscow.
• 11. I Get to Know Vorovatin Better. An Overheard Conversation. Premonitions. A Police Captain.
• 12. An Emancipated Man. A Lunatic. Deceived in Love.
• 13. A Prisoner of the Kirghiz. A Kirghiz Philosopher, Arsalan-Sultan. I Become a Horseman.
• 14. Arsalan-Sultan’s Account of His Stay in Russia
• 15. Consequences of a Hard Winter in the Steppe. The Attack. A Joyful Reunion with My First Benefactor.
• 16. Milovidin’s Tale. A Moral Automaton and His Housekeeper. An Old Maid’s Family. A Panorama of Moscow Society. A Friendly Quadrille. A Russian Foreigner. Society at the Spa. A View of Venice.
• 17. The Resolution of the Kirghiz Elders Concerning My Reward. The Continuation of Milovidin’s Tale. A Duel. The Flight. The Apostate Yid. Arrival in Constantinople. What Is Pera? Betrayal. Slavery. Liberation.
• 18. Departure from the Steppe. The Police Chief Once Again! Collectors of Transit Dues. The Officials’ Feast.
• 19. A Business Conversation at a Russian Merchant’s. A Tempestuous Man. The End of a Villain.
• 20. A Landowner—the Kind We Need More of in Russia. Judge the Flock by Its Priest.
• 21. The Audacious Landowner—Sila Minich Glazdurin
• 22. A Retired Soldier’s Story. Arrival in Moscow. My Aunt’s History. I Find My Mother. The Seducer. Murderers.
• 23. The Conclusion of Adelaida Petrovna’s Story. Marriage. Reeducation. The Free Life. The Fatal Consequences of Negligence. I Enter the World. Paying Visits.
• 24. A Picture of High Society. Meeting with a Kind Enemy. Oh, Human Weakness!
• 25. Grunya’s Story. Friendship with a Clever Actress, or The Shortest, Surest, and Nicest Path to Ruin.
• 26. Deliver Us from Evil! A Lesson in Daytime Piracy. Advice from an Old Soldier. I Come into Money Again.
• 27. False Gamblers. A Letter from Milovidin. He Located His Wife. Petronella’s Repentance. Sequestration in Poland, or Check and Mate to Creditors. The Death of Mr. Gologordovsky. Mr. Pochtivsky, His Other Son-in-Law.
• 28. The Young Nobleman. Glupashkin. An Aficionado of Dramatic Art. Disorder in the Robbers’ Den. Misfortune. Grunya’s Flight. Honesty in Wolf’s Clothing, or Don’t Judge by Appearances. The Egoist.
• 29. My Intention to Marry. Official Arithmetic. Acquaintance with a Wealthy Tax Farmer. A Feast in the Home of the Merchant Moshnin. His Family. Domestic Theater.
• 30. Failure in Matchmaking. Letters from the Kirghiz Steppe and from Paris. Departure for the Army. War. Distinction. Return to Moscow.
• 31. Retirement. Departure for Petersburg. The Difference between Petersburg and Moscow Society. A Wicked Plan. The Unfortunate Olinka. I Am Imprisoned. It’s Possible to Be Happy Even in a Disastrous Situation.
• 32. A Savior. It’s the Crime, Not the Place, That Dishonors a Man. A Just Punishment for a Villain. A Secret Revealed. Last Will and Testament. Love and Friendship. The Lawsuit. Solicitors. Secretaries. A Visit to the Judges. There Are Good People Everywhere.
• 33. Usurers. The End of My Lawsuit. Supplement to Pyotr Petrovich’s Account. The Fate of Literary Men. Trouble from Hypocrites. Persons Who Curry Favor. Marriage. The Grandee’s Kindness. The Course of Affairs. The Incursion of Relatives. Retirement. All’s Well That Ends Well. Conclusion.
• List of Principal Characters
• Selected Bibliography of Major Works in English on Bulgarin’s Ivan Vyzhigin