Sergey Vasilyevich Ivanov was born in Ruza, Moscow Governorate, in 1864. From a young age, the boy showed a talent for art. However, his father, an excise officer of modest means who did not see much difference between painting and technical drawing, sent him to the Konstantinovsky Land Surveying Institute in Moscow when the boy was 11 years old. The young artist felt burdened by his studies. Luckily, when he was 14, one of his father’s friends introduced him to the painter Vasily Perov. The prominent artist liked the boy’s sketches and helped him get a place as a non-matriculated student at the Moscow Art School. The following year, Sergey Ivanov left the Land Surveying Institute and enrolled in the Art School.

One of the key themes in the artist’s early works was the migration of peasants. In the second half of the 1880s, peasants started migrating from Central Russia to the sparsely populated areas in Siberia. In this way, the government tried to solve the issues associated with the lack of land that affected millions of peasants who had been freed from serfdom. Sergey Ivanov created a series of paintings exploring this subject. While working on these paintings, the artist took a journey across the governorates through which the poor peasants traveled.

In 1885–1889, Sergey Ivanov visited the Samara, Saratov, Astrakhan, and Orenburg Governorates. He saw families of peasants walking across the country. Many of them died along the way. Sergey Ivanov depicted their tragic fate in his painting “Return of Migrants”. The painting was displayed at the 16th exhibition of the Society for Traveling Art Exhibitions in 1888. Sergey Ivanov quickly gained recognition. In the 1880s and 1890s, he became one of the most popular painters.

This marked the beginning of a new period in Ivanov’s career during which he focused on history painting. He was particularly fascinated by the most dramatic episodes from the history of Russia and the strong character of the Russian people. One of his paintings imbued with such motifs is “In the Forest. In Memory of Stephen of Perm and Other Missionaries”. It explores the struggle between paganism and Christianity.

While working on this painting in the summer of 1898, Sergey Ivanov took a trip to the Vyatka Governorate. He strove to accurately reproduce the material culture, objects, utensils, and clothing in his painting. The image was demonstrated at the Exhibition of the Society for Traveling Art Exhibitions in 1899, and Sergey Ivanov became a full member of the Society.