Gospoda Golovljovi

The novel is a profound and merciless critique of Russian society, especially the provincial nobility, false religiosity, hypocrisy, and greed. The author masterfully uses satire and irony to show the moral and material disintegration of a family whose members are trapped in a web of their own lies, greed, and mutual misunderstanding. The work is often considered the most powerful depiction of the “death of the soul” in Russian literature, where no one manages to escape the circle of hypocrisy and egoism.

The translation from the Russian by Isa Velikanović is considered a classic and very successful, and this Zagreb edition from 1918 represents an important part of the early translations of Russian classics into Croatian during the Austro-Hungarian Empire and World War I.

Today, this edition is a real rarity on the antiquarian market and is highly valued among collectors of Russian literature, lovers of realism, and literary historians. It represents not only a literary masterpiece, but also a valuable historical artifact of Croatian publishing from the beginning of the 20th century.