“Enlightenment” or “Enrichment”: About the Values and State of Russian Post-reform Society in A. I. Ertel’s Series “Notes of Stepnyak”

The article examines the ideological and artistic originality of the book of essays by A. I. Ertel “Notes of Stepnyak.” It manifests itself in the fundamentals of organizing the integrity of the entire collection, the writer’s worldview, and the relationship between the position of the author and the narrator in the book. The work emphasizes that Ertel was often credited with extreme populist views, but the writer saw his task not only in helping the people, but in the improvement and transformation of the entire Russian society, Russian life, which was confidently and quickly losing its moral core and high moral standards. The author of the article comprehends the main motifs of the book of essays and the principles of organizing the system of characters in it. Ertel’s letters to his contemporaries, his reasoning allow to describe and characterize writer’s attitude towards the Russian people and the main problems of Russian post-reform life.