Alexander Ivanovich Ertel met the author of the novel “Chronicles of the Smurino Village” Pavel Vladimirovich Zasodimsky in 1876 (Zasodimsky himself indicated 1875 in his memoirs) in Usman, in the house of Ivan Vasilyevich Fedotov, Ertel’s father-in-law and the founder of the Usman public library. In his memoirs, Pavel Zasodimsky wrote,

Pavel Zasodimsky belonged to the Narodnik movement in Russian literature. He traveled extensively through the Voronezh, Tambov and Vologda Governorates, observed the life of peasants and had firsthand knowledge of their troubles. Ertel, who was the son of an estate agent and grew up in this environment, also had a special place in his heart for the theme of the Russian countryside.

Pavel Vladimirovich Zasodimsky greatly contributed to Ertel’s writing career. In 1878, he helped the aspiring writer to publish his first story “The Resettlers” in the Russkoye Obozreniye (Russian Review) magazine. Then Zasodimsky invited Ertel to Saint Petersburg and offered him to manage a library he had recently opened for writers and public figures. According to Zasodimsky’s memoirs, their friendship lasted for 33 years.

The book “Chronicles of the Smurino Village”, presented by Zasodimsky to Ertel in October of 1906 with a dedicatory inscription “as a token of respect and in memory of old friendship”, was not the first edition of this work. The novel was first printed in the Otechestvennye Zapiski (Notes of the Fatherland) magazine in 1874 and depicts the post-reform village and the lives of Russian peasants back in those years.