Nikolai Vasilevich Gogol was a Ukrainian-born Russian writer. Although many of his works were influenced by his Ukrainian heritage and upbringing, he wrote in the Russian language and his works are among the most beloved in the tradition of Russian literature.

Gogol is seen by most critics as the first Russian realist. His biting satire, comic realism, and descriptions of Russian provincials and petty bureaucrats influenced later Russian masters Leo Tolstoy, Ivan Turgenev, and especially Fyodor Dostoyevsky. Many of Gogol's witty sayings have since become Russian maxims.

Ivan Alexandrovich Goncharov was a Russian novelist. He also served in many official capacities, including the position of censor.

Goncharov was born in Simbirsk into the family of a wealthy merchant; as a reward for his grandfather's military service, they were elevated to gentry status.[4] He was educated at a boarding school, then the Moscow College of Commerce, and finally at Moscow State University. After graduating, he served for a short time in the office of the Governor of Simbirsk, before moving to Saint Petersburg where he worked as government translator and private tutor, while publishing poetry and fiction in private almanacs. Goncharov's first novel, A Common Story, was published in Sovremennik in 1847.

Ivan Sergeyevich Turgenev was a Russian novelist, short story writer, poet, playwright, translator and popularizer of Russian literature in the West.

Although Turgenev has been overshadowed by his contemporaries, Fyodor Dostoevsky and Leo Tolstoy, he remains one of the major figures of 19th century Russian literature.

Turgenev realistically portrayed the peasantry and the rising intelligentsia in its attempt to move the country into a new age. There is perhaps no novelist of foreign nationality who more naturally than Ivan Turgenev inherits a niche in a library for English readers.

Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky was a Russian novelist, short story writer, essayist and journalist. Dostoevsky's literary works explore the human condition in the troubled political, social, and spiritual atmospheres of 19th-century Russia, and engage with a variety of philosophical and religious themes. He was considered by many critics to be among the greatest writers of his or any age. His works had a profound and lasting impact on twentieth-century thought and fiction. Often featuring characters with disparate and extreme states of the mind, his works exhibit both an uncanny grasp of human psychology as well as penetrating analyses of the political, social, and spiritual state of Russia during his time. Many of his best-known works are prophetic as precursors of modern-day thought and preoccupations.

Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin was a Russian poet, playwright, and novelist of the Romantic era. He is considered by many to be the greatest Russian poet and the founder of modern Russian literature.

Pushkin was born into the Russian nobility in Moscow. His father, Sergey Lvovich Pushkin, belonged to an old noble family. His maternal great-grandfather was Major-General Abram Petrovich Gannibal, a nobleman of African origin who was kidnapped from his homeland and raised in the Emperor's court household as his godson.

Mikhail Yuryevich Lermontov was a Russian Romantic writer, poet and painter, sometimes called "the poet of the Caucasus", the most important Russian poet after Alexander Pushkin's death in 1837 and the greatest figure in Russian Romanticism. His influence on later Russian literature is still felt in modern times, not only through his poetry, but also through his prose, which founded the tradition of the Russian psychological novel.

Fyodor Ivanovich Tyutchev was a Russian poet and diplomat who was remarkable both as a highly original philosophic poet and as a militant Slavophile, and whose whole literary output constitutes a struggle to fuse political passion with poetic imagination.

Ivan is most of the time the third son of a peasant. He is considered to be lazy and foolish and spends all his time lying on the great house stove (a unique feature of Russian peasants' houses, the stove was traditionally in the center of the log hut and retained heat for hours) until something forces him to go on a journey and fulfill the role of the hero. Although others think of Ivan as unintelligent, he is also very kind, humble, and lucky. As he goes through the forest, he usually meets characters whom he helps, unlike his two older brothers who have been on the same journey and failed. As a reward, the characters that he helps end up helping him, as they turn out to be powerful creatures such as Baba Yaga, Koschei the Immortal or the Vodyanoy. Ivan can also appear as Tsarevich Ivan, also the third son, who is often lost as a baby and doesn't know about his royal blood, as he is brought up as a peasant. Alternatively, Ivan Tsarevich is sometimes seen as the third son of the tsar, treated badly by his elder brothers. Whatever Ivan's background, it always involves the role of the underdog who proves everyone wrong with his wit, enterprising qualities, and kindness.