Alexander Ivanovich Ertel’s stories “The Officer’s Wife” and “In the Blizzard” were part of the cycle “Notes of a Steppe-Dweller”, which was published for three years — from 1880 to 1882 — in the Vestnik Evropy (Messenger of Europe) magazine. Some stories from the cycle also appeared in the Delo and Russkoye Bogatstvo (Russian Wealth) magazines.
In 1883, the writer collected all the stories and published them in two volumes. For this edition, Ertel wrote a chapter entitled “My Acquaintance with Baturin”, which introduces the main character Nikolay Vasilyevich Baturin, who narrates the events in the stories.
All the stories of the cycle are centered around meetings and conversations that Baturin has with his neighbors in the steppe of the Voronezh Governorate. The pages of “Notes of a Steppe-Dweller” contain memorable images of Baturin’s acquaintances — peasants, landowners and representatives of rural intelligentsia.
The story “In the Blizzard” was first printed in 1880 in the second booklet of the Vestnik Evropy under the title “The Night Trip” and became the first story of the cycle “Notes of a Steppe-Dweller”, published in this magazine. It was written in February 1878 in the village of Olkhovka, Bobrovsky Uyezd, Voronezh Governorate.
The title of the story changed several times. Alexander Ertel sent the story to the editorial office of the Vestnik Evropy as “Passion Bearers”, but the magazine’s editor, Mikhail Matveyevich Stasyulevich, did not like the title and renamed it “The Night Trip”. In the end, Ertel titled the story “In the Blizzard” in a special edition of “Notes of a Steppe-Dweller”.
After the story was published in the Vestnik Evropy, it was censored and had to be significantly reduced by the editor, because it raised an acute issue of the impoverishment of the villages and described the plight of peasant families, whose hopeless poverty, endless debts and hunger pushed them to the edge of subsistence.
“The Officer’s Wife” is one of the last stories of the cycle “Notes of a Steppe-Dweller”. In it, the writer created a charming image of a rural teacher. She sees teaching literacy to peasant children as the main goal in her life. When dreaming of the future, she imagines her students becoming enlightened and educated people. Baturin sees the fragility of this idea at once yet does not dissuade the teacher, realizing that her only possible salvation lies in her belief. Upon learning that the peasants get into education to later deceive their illiterate neighbors, the teacher’s dreams are shattered by a harsh reality, and she sees no point in living anymore.
Of all the stories of the cycle “Notes of a Steppe-Dweller”, “The Officer’s Wife” and “In the Blizzard” were the most well-received.
