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# Saltykov-Shchedrin was not a particularly sociable man, nor one inclined to make new acquaintances: for many years he kept company with one and the same circle of people
- URL: https://theparnassian.com/en/saltykov-shchedrin-ne-byl-ochen-obshchitelnym-i-nastroennym-na-novye-znakomstva-chelovekom-mnogie-gody-on-obshchalsia-s-odnim-i-tem-zhe-krugom-liudei/
- Published: 2022-03-24T12:22:29.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-01T05:39:11.000Z
- Author: Alexandr Radayev
- Tags: Books, Paris, People

Saltykov-Shchedrin was not a particularly sociable man, nor one inclined to make new acquaintances: for many years he kept company with one and the same circle of people. Unlike many of his contemporaries, he was not dazzled by foreign authors and did not cling to them. All the more surprising, then, was it for me to learn of his sudden love for Émile Zola and the brothers Goncourt, whom he insistently invited to contribute to the *Otechestvennye zapiski* (*Notes of the Fatherland*), which he edited.

Shchedrin went abroad five times, and on only one of those occasions, in the autumn of 1875, he somehow skidded on a bend and began to seek, with real fervour, a personal meeting and close acquaintance with Émile Zola, with whom he had so far been only in correspondence. Together with Zola, Mikhail Evgrafovich took a keen interest in the brothers Goncourt, whom he loved for *Germinie Lacerteux*.

The meeting with Zola was long awaited, but somehow it never came off: Zola was all this time away from Paris. And Shchedrin kept making plans for how they might collaborate further, and which of Zola's unpublished works might be taken first for publication in Russia.

By the beginning of winter, however, Shchedrin had cooled sharply towards both Zola and the Goncourts. So much so that he even broke off negotiations on the further printing of those Goncourt novels that had not been published in France, and no longer wished to lure Zola away from the *Vestnik Evropy* (*The Messenger of Europe*) once and for all, although he had earlier intended to offer him a larger fee than the journal paid.

And no sooner had M.E. changed his attitude to the object of his adoration than that very meeting arranged itself. In the spring of 1876 Saltykov-Shchedrin made the personal acquaintance of Edmond de Goncourt, Gustave Flaubert and Émile Zola. What can one say: our friend felt no particular enthusiasm on the occasion, although he did speak of Zola, unlike the others, as a decent man, but very poor and downtrodden.