Nikolay Nikolaevich Zlatovratsky and Alexander Ivanovich Ertel met in Saint Petersburg in 1879.

In his memoirs, Nikolay Zlatovratsky wrote the following about Ertel, 

Soon Zlatovratsky moved to Moscow, and Ertel ended up in Tver as a political exile. The writers maintained an active correspondence. They planned various literary projects together, such as publishing a people’s newspaper and a collection of literary works to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the abolition of serfdom. Many prominent writers, including Leo Tolstoy, intended to participate in the creation of the collection. The project, however, was never implemented.

Nikolay Zlatovratsky knew Leo Tolstoy and was fond of his ideas. In a letter to Vladimir Grigoryevich Chertkov on July 13, 1888, Ertel recalled that it was in his conversations with Zlatovratsky that he “for the first time understood the importance of Leo Tolstoy.” In the spring of 1885, after reading “Confession” and “What I Believe”, Ertel wrote a letter to Tolstoy, asking him for a meeting and a conversation.

Zlatovratsky was an outstanding representative of the Narodnik movement in Russian literature of the second half of the 19th century. The writer spent a few years creating one of his largest works, a novella in four parts titled “The Foundation. The History of One Village”, from 1878 to 1883. Zlatovratsky’s novella was first printed in the Otechestvennye Zapiski (Notes of the Fatherland) magazine, which he actively collaborated with. This voluminous story about the conflict between the old and new ways of the village is a remarkable work of Russian realist prose, reflecting the details and important characteristics of that time and the clash of ideals and reality.