who was Ivan Goncharov, and why has the character he created taken on such ineradicably symbolic proportions?
He was born in 1812 in a town on the Volga named Simbirsk, which struck all who came to visit it, including the poet Lermontov, as the epitome of “sleep and laziness.” “Even [the] Volga,” he wrote, “rolled here slower and smoother.” Goncharov himself later agreed that “the whole appearance of my home town was a perfect picture of sleepiness and stagnation.” He came from a very prosperous merchant family, and was one of the few Russian writers of this period descended from such a background. When he wished to study at the University of Moscow, it was necessary for him to obtain freedom from the guild of merchants in order not to be forced to follow in his father’s footsteps. Despite climbing the ladder to the highest ranks of the civil service, and even being appointed tutor to a presumed inheritor to the throne who died prematurely, it would appear that Goncharov could never shake off a certain sense of discomfort deriving from this relatively lowly origin. He was known for his shy and
