A prolific and long-lived writer of narodnik (populist) orientation, Pavel Vladimirovich Zasodimsky was actively involved in Russian literary life from the late 1860s until his death in 1912. He contributed to (and at times helped edit) the major "progressive" journals of his time, and he was personally acquainted with many important populist writers-- including Nikolai Vasil'evich Shelgunov, Petr Lavrovich Lavrov, Nikolai Konstantinovich Mikhailovsky, Gleb Ivanovich Uspensky, and Nikolai Nikolaevich Zlatovratsky. He also knew Innokentii Vasil'evich Omulevsky (Innokentii Vasil'evich Fedorov), Aleksandr Ivanovich Levitov, Ivan Alekseevich Bunin, and Dmitrii Narkisovich Mamin (D. Sibiriak)--and he corresponded with Leo Tolstoy. Contemporaries found him personable, and he was known for helping beginning writers and others in need. Critics, both contemporary and posthumous, however, have tended to minimize the literary significance of Zasodimsky's works. In the opinion of one critic, for example, "since he values primarily ideological content, [Zasodimsky] clearly concerns himself very little...