A Family of Noblemen by Mikhail SALTYKOV-SHCHEDRIN (1826 - 1889), translated by Avrahm YARMOLINSKY (1890 - 1975)
Genre(s): Culture & Heritage Fiction, Satire

Read by: Expatriate in English

Parts:
Part 1 https://youtu.be/hinuJqfAUVE

Chapters:
00:00:00 - 26 - Book IV: The Good Little Niece, Ch. 5b
00:16:18 - 27 - Book IV: The Good Little Niece, Ch. 6
00:31:53 - 28 - Book V: Forbidden Family Joys, Ch. 1
00:53:46 - 29 - Book V: Forbidden Family Joys, Ch. 2a
01:14:11 - 30 - Book V: Forbidden Family Joys, Ch. 2b
01:29:57 - 31 - Book V: Forbidden Family Joys, Ch. 3
01:41:06 - 32 - Book VI: The Deserted Manor House, Ch. 1
01:48:19 - 33 - Book VI: The Deserted Manor House, Ch. 2a
02:02:19 - 34 - Book VI: The Deserted Manor House, Ch. 2b
02:17:44 - 35 - Book VI: The Deserted Manor House, Ch. 3
02:26:11 - 36 - Book VI: The Deserted Manor House, Ch. 4
02:51:38 - 37 - Book VII: The Settlement, Ch. 1
03:05:38 - 38 - Book VII: The Settlement, Ch. 2a
03:26:54 - 39 - Book VII: The Settlement, Ch. 2b
03:43:16 - 40 - Book VII: The Settlement, Ch. 3
03:53:38 - 41 - Book VII: The Settlement, Ch. 4
04:05:51 - 42 - Book VII: The Settlement, Ch. 5

Meet the Golovliovs, the ultimate dysfunctional family. In the difficult transition years before and after the liberation of Russia's serfs, the Golovliovs are a gentry family ill-equipped to face the adaptations necessary in the new social order. Petty, back-biting, greedy, rigid, ignorant, and cruel, their personalities are captured in the array of nicknames they themselves give each other: The Hag, Little Judas, Simple Simon, Pavel the Sneak, the Orphans, the Blood-Sucker. They hate each other ferociously and utterly despise the peasants around them, who are gradually awakening to the potentialities of their new freedoms. In this most famous of Saltykov-Shchedrin's novels, there is a keen sympathy toward the plight of women caught in the complexities of social change: Anninka and Lubinka, the aristocratic orphans who, seeking independence, recklessly cast themselves into the bohemian life; the matriarch Arina Petrovna, whose desperately vigorous administration of the estate leads to an exhilarating but only temporary stability; the peasant girl Yevpraksia, who is resistlessly taken by the loathsome Porfiry Vladimirych as his mistress. Far from a piece of social propaganda, A Family of Noblemen shows a subtle portraiture of the complex characters and convoluted circumstances of the time. (Expatriate)

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