The book of novellas and short stories by the Polish writer Eliza Orzeszkowa was presented to Alexander Ivanovich Ertel by her translator and the publisher of the Russkaya Mysl (Russian Mind) Vukol Mikhailovich Lavrov.

Vukol Lavrov invited many famous writers to collaborate with the magazine. Russkaya Mysl published the works of Leo Tolstoy, Anton Pavlovich Chekhov, Vladimir Galaktionovich Korolenko, Dmitry Vasilyevich Grigorovich and Yakov Petrovich Polonsky. From 1885, stories and novellas by Alexander Ivanovich Ertel began to appear in the magazine. In the late 1880s — early 1890s, Russkaya Mysl printed two of the writer’s novels: “The Gardenins; Their Retainers, Their Friends, and Their Enemies” and “The Change”.

Lavrov considered the popularization of foreign, and primarily Slavic, literature as one of the main tasks of the periodical. To do this, he hired the best Russian translators.

Vukol Lavrov was also known for his translations of Polish literary works. From a young age, he was interested in Polish culture and mastered the Polish language by himself. Lavrov translated Polish authors Henryk Sienkiewicz, Bolesław Prus, Aleksander Potocki and Eliza Orzeszkowa and maintained close ties with a number of Polish periodicals.

The translations of the Russkaya Mysl publisher were highly praised by the critics. Thus, in 1912, the Istorichesky Vestnik (History Herald) magazine wrote,

In 1890, when Russkaya Mysl finished printing Henryk Sienkiewicz’s novel “Without Dogma”, Ertel noted, 

Eliza Orzeszkowa, the author of the book “Novellas and Stories”, and Vukol Lavrov had a long-standing friendship. In her letters to the Russkaya Mysl publisher, the Polish writer emphasized his great skill in conveying the subtle nuances of the text and his excellent knowledge of the Polish language, which allowed him to accurately convey not only thoughts and images but also the very tone of the narrative, the “tunableness of words”.