The novels, novellas and short stories of Alexander Ivanovich Ertel left a significant mark on the history of Russian literature of the last third of the 19th century. However, in the last decade of his life, he had to give up his beloved career in literature. The money he earned from the publication of his works was not enough to support his family; moreover, he had to pay off debts, which accumulated after he helped to feed the starving people from 1891 to 1892. The debt amounted to 10,000 rubles.

In 1896, Ertel was forced to become the manager of the Khludov estate called Alexandrovka, located in the Morshansky Uyezd, Tambov Governorate, where he moved with his family.

He had no time left for writing. In a letter to Pavel Alexandrovich Bakunin dated November 24, 1890, responding to his remark about the carefree lifestyle of some writers, Alexander Ertel admitted,

The large village of Alexandrovka was quite poor. When Ertel arrived there, all the log houses but two were heated with a stove venting into the room and had no chimney, but after 10 years, thanks to the writer’s efforts, all log houses in the village had a chimney and were heated properly.

Alexander Ertel, a third-generation estate manager, did not forget the farming lessons that his father gave him from the age of 13. In a letter to Anton Pavlovich Chekhov dated March 25, 1893, he recalled,

Alexander Ertel did his best to improve the living conditions of the peasants in the village. He already had experience in helping villagers in need: in the early 1890s, when there was a terrible famine in Russia, he organized a trusteeship in the parish of the Makarye village, which gave free rye and wheat flour to the poor, opened schools for children and soup kitchens.

Just like in Makarye, Alexander Ertel meticulously oversaw the peasant economy in Alexandrovka and organized free medical care. At the writer’s initiative, a good school was built in the village in 1898, and he provided books and textbooks for it.