The book is based on a series of "detective" articles and notes about iconic and undeservedly forgotten authors, characters, and texts of Russian literature. It spans from Alexander Pushkin, Leo Tolstoy, Osip Mandelstam, Daniil Kharms, and Velimir Khlebnikov to the Estonian fantasist Ivan Narodny and the anonymous creator of a tragic Ukrainian folk song.

From the disillusioned officer Pechorin, the nihilist Bazarov, the envious Kavalerov, the gloomy clerk Epikhodov, and the unlucky goose thief Panikovsky to the happy kitten named Pushkin, the playful mare of Commander Budyonny, and the collectivist-minded hen. From "The Brothers Karamazov" to "A Maiden's Toy."

Most of the "semi-funny" and "semi-sad" novellas included in the book are united by the author's natural desire to dispel, at least in thoughts and imagination, the profound melancholy of our historical era.

Ilya Yuryevich Vinitsky is a Doctor of Philological Sciences and a professor in the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures at Princeton University. His research interests include 18th-19th century Russian literature and the history of emotions.

He is the author of the books "Ghostly Paradoxes: Modern Spiritualism and Russian Culture in the Age of Realism" (2009), "Vasily Zhukovsky’s Romanticism and the Emotional History of Russia" (2015), "The Consolations of Melancholy" (1997), "The Interpreter's House: Poetic Semantics and Historical Imagination of Vasily Zhukovsky" (2006), "Count Sardinian: Dmitry Khvostov and Russian Culture" (2017), and "Translated Pictures: Literary Translation as Interpretation and Provocation" (2022).