Surely, one must be mad to live in a crazed, decadent society such as ours. One in which gossip and deception supplant the truth, where depravity is hastily dismissed with frivolous laughter, and where every effort is made to conceal one’s true identity, thoughts, and intentions. A society in which reality itself becomes a kitsch spectacle. In his 1907 masterpiece The Petty Demon, symbolist poet and novelist Fyodor Sologub satirizes this descent into madness, holding a mirror up to society at large—and one not too far removed from today’s. Although his novel’s fictional provincial town is set roughly a century removed from the present day, when reading, one can’t help but notice how little (if anything at all) has changed. With each passing year, we witness the further erasure of universally accepted truths, the rise of smug philistinism, and a sickly paranoia that pushes many toward a state of lunacy.
Sandwiched between canonical titans such as Fyodor Dostoevsky and Leo Tolstoy and the tumult of the 1917 Russian Revolution, Sologub has become regrettably forgotten by most. His novel The Petty Demon remains one of the most inventive, multi-layered satires in the entire Russian canon, blending the mysticism of Gogol with humorous caricatures that sharply reflect society’s gradual unraveling. Beyond its absurdist depictions, the work probes into pretentious vulgarity, the sadistic allure of punishment and pleasure, hypocrisy, and paranoia. Richly symbolic and comical at every turn of the page, Sologub’s work merits greater attention, particularly in a world that leans ever closer toward the absurdity of fiction than toward any semblance of reality.
Deception Becomes Reality
The story takes place in a fictional, provincial town akin to Nikolai Gogol’s town of N, where Chichikov arrives in Dead Souls. Surrounded by charlatans, philistines, and shameless gossipers, we find Ardalion Borisovich Peredonov, a self-seeking gymnasium instructor. His mistress (and distant cousin), Varvara, is equally conniving and promises him that Princess Volchanskaya will grant him the position of inspector of educational institutions in St. Petersburg after, and only after, he marries her. Obtaining this prestigious promotion and spiting those around him becomes Peredonov’s chief obsession, and one that he’s willing to sacrifice everything to achieve.
Alongside Peredonov is Rutilov, the father of three frivolous daughters; Pavel Vasilievich Volodin, whose flippant remarks cause deep suspicion; Grushina, who conspires with Varvara; and a host of other boisterous characters. From the onset of the novel until its very end, Peredonov is convinced the town is conspiring not merely to prevent him from becoming the inspector, but even to kill and replace him with Volodin. His paranoia grows throughout the work and eventually becomes personified in a vile, demonic figure named Nedotykomka (Недотыкомка). The raucous laughter of those around him pushes him into panicked and delirious states, where he recites incantations to ward off evil spirits and punctures the eyes of the royals in the deck of playing cards. With each desperate encounter, Peredonov’s madness hurls him further into deception rather than truth:
“Even in a tranquil moment Peredonov, like all shallow people, was unable to appraise little incidents. He either did not notice them, or else he greatly exaggerated their significance. And so now, when he was agitated by expectations and fears, his senses served him even more poorly, and little by little all reality became clouded before him by a shroud of offensive and evil mirages.”
More than satirizing a paranoiac, Sologub delves deeper, exposing the vulgarity of the town through the Russian concept of пошлость (poshlost’). The word eludes easy translation into English, encompassing vulgarity, banality, and false sophistication disguised as something respectable or even admirable. At every turn, пошлость manifests itself in the petty townsfolk, who gleefully embrace lies, indulge in debauchery, and cling to cheap sentimentality. In this sense, Sologub continues the tradition established by Gogol in Dead Souls, a novel populated by пошлые люди (vulgar people) and characterized by пошлое поведение (crude behavior).
Erotic Sweetness & Shame
One of the central lies in the novel is Peredonov’s baseless claim that Sasha Pylnikov, a young schoolboy in his class, is actually a woman in disguise. Taking unsubstantiated gossip as gospel, Peredonov spreads this lie alongside other accusations of student misbehavior, provoking a wave of beatings and physical punishment. Yet corporal punishment extends beyond the consequences of Peredonov’s false accusations, recurring throughout the novel in ways that suggest an undercurrent of erotic pleasure. This is particularly evident in Ludmila Rutilovna’s dream, in which a chamber is filled with attractive, naked boys being whipped, including Sasha himself.
Although Ludmila and Sasha’s relationship remains asexual, it is nevertheless Epicurean in nature. She douses him in a variety of sugary perfumes and delights in dressing the innocent boy in all sorts of frothy dresses. Rutilovna proudly professes a deep enchantment with Romanticism and poetry, even declaring herself “a pagan, a sinner.” She goes on:
“I ought to have been born in ancient Athens. I love flowers, perfumes, bright clothes, the naked body. They say there is a soul. I don’t know, I haven’t seen it. But why do I need one? Let me die completely like a water nymph, let me melt away like a cloud under the sun.”
Her conversations with Sasha reveal a nature less tethered to sexual desire than to a Dionysian sensuality. She assures Sasha that it is “good to suffer” and that there is a “sweetness in pain.” Sasha and Ludmila become a quasi-Adam and Eve, with Sasha’s bashfulness gradually swept away by her shameless spirit. He becomes helplessly intoxicated, unable to recognize the dangers of an unrestrained pursuit of pleasure. She boldly declares:
“He won’t go crazy, a fool has nothing to go crazy about. And even if he did, well, madness amuses fools!”
The Lone Madman
Deeply rooted in his own petty individuality, Peredonov grows increasingly alienated. His isolation is exacerbated by his schizophrenic ideations and suspicion, which extend not only to those around him but to nature itself. The external world becomes a projection of his internalized fears, misery, and pettiness. Sologub captures Peredonov’s troubled psychological state in one of the most philosophical passages of the novel:
“In nature Peredonov felt reflections of his own anguish and fear in the form of its hostility towards him. He was insensitive to the intrinsic, undefinable life in all nature, that life which alone is the cause of deep, true, and unfailing relations between man and nature. All nature appeared to him permeated with petty human feelings. Blinded by illusions of personality and separate existence, he could not understand the spontaneous Dionysian ecstasies triumphantly calling in nature. He was blind and pitiful-like many of us.”
He cannot fathom a world beyond his own psyche, which is plagued by hostility, spite, and insecurity. The other denizens of the town share in this anguish, but distract and entertain themselves with the pleasures of booze, gambling, and trivialities. His attempts to look behind the curtain, rip off the masks, and expose the conspirators only deepen his anguish, driving him even further from the supposed truth he seeks.
“Yes, even Peredonov strove towards truth according to the general law of every conscious being, and this striving tormented him. He himself did not realize that, like all people, he also was striving for truth, and, therefore, he was tormented by anxiety. He was unable to discover truths for himself, and he became entangled and was perishing.”
Just Keep Dancing
As a masterful symbolist, Sologub brings his novel to a crescendo with a grand masquerade, brilliantly reflecting the sybaritic atmosphere and false pretenses that pervade the town. Among those arriving at the party are Grushina in a revealing dress, Gudaevsky dressed as a Native American and his wife as an ear of corn, along with a host of other creative costumes. Most striking of all, however, is Pylnikov, dressed by the Rutilovna girls as a geisha. To no one’s surprise, he wins the prize for best women’s costume, but is forced to flee when a furious mob demands that the geisha reveal her identity.
Despite his trepidations about potential threats, Peredonov arrives without a mask, playing directly into one of the novel’s broader themes. While the entire town dresses up, concealing itself behind kitsch appearances, the perceived madman is ironically the lone attendee to arrive unmasked and seek the truth. Before the evening ends, however, his sinister Nedotykomka convinces him to set the curtains ablaze, bringing the festivities to a fiery conclusion.
In the weeks to follow, Sasha’s aunt Ekaterina catches wind of his errant behavior after receiving concerning letters from Kokovkina and the gymnasium director. She initially plans to scold the Rutilovna girls, but their pleasant appearances sway her and create a misleading impression. Naturally, their lies prove more convincing:
“The sisters lied so convincingly and calmly that one could not help but believe them. And besides, a lie is often more credible than the truth. Almost always. The truth itself, of course, is incredible.”
The Sweet Comfort of Deception
To understand Peredonov’s madness and Sologub’s circus, one need look no further than his protagonist’s name: Передонов. The Russian prefix пере- often indicates repetition or the act of doing something over again, as in перечитать (to reread) or переделать (to redo). Paired with дон, which evokes Miguel de Cervantes’s tragicomic knight Don Quixote, the name reveals another layer of satire embedded in Peredonov himself. His madness feeds on repetition, driven both by his projection of his fears onto the world and by the absurdity that surrounds him. Yet, as translator Andrew Field notes, Peredonov is “not himself the petty demon, but only the first among many, and the novel is simply the logical extension of an illogical reality.”
Following the initial publication of his novel, readers largely fell into two camps: those who saw it as an amusing comedy and those who interpreted its base impulses as a reflection of its author. In the introduction to the second edition, Sologub sneers at critics who suggest that Peredonov is, in part, an embodiment of Sologub himself. He explains:
“It’s true that people love to be loved. It is pleasing to them when the sides of their character which are the noblest and most lofty are shown. And even in villains they want to see glimpses of good—”God’s spark”—as they said in olden times. That is why they find it hard to believe when there is placed before them a picture which is true, accurate, somber, evil. They wish to say, “He has written this about himself.” No, my dear contemporaries, it is of you that I have written my novel about the petty demon and its frightening nedotykomka, about Ardal’on and Varvara Peredonov, Pavel Volodin, Dar’ya, Ludmila, and Valeriya Rutilova, Aleksandr Pyl’nikov, and the rest. It is of you.”
Sologub saw his novel as a mirror rather than something he had to invent. Drawing on his experience as a gymnasium instructor and his observations of the moral decay around him, he claimed to have had “достаточно ‘натуры’ вокруг себя” (enough ‘nature’ around him). Ultimately, the absurd spectacle of his novel and the fabrications at its foundation illustrate the old adage that life is often stranger than fiction.
When we read such farcical novels, we like to imagine how far removed they are from reality. The realization that the anguish, deceit, and depravity within a story might reflect our own lives rather than some distant, fictional world is discomforting. Like Peredonov, we might easily descend into despair or madness, unable to strip the masks from the petty demons and sinister forces surrounding us. Instead, we would rather laugh to conceal our terror and lose ourselves in the intoxicating pleasures of the carnival in which we partake. We, too, are petty demons.
