A summary of Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin’s "Well-Intentioned Speeches"

This book is a sharp, satirical chronicle of the post-reform era, published in 1876. In it, the author ironically dissects the falsehood of conservative ideals and the hypocrisy of the emerging bourgeois society. The story is told from the perspective of a humble, rebellious citizen who travels through his native lands, listening to the demagoguery of officials, landowners, and merchants, observing how cynical predation and greed lurk beneath the grandiose phrases about morality, property, and statehood.

Travel and the ideologists of taming

The text opens with the narrator’s reflections on the main motive of contemporary life — the principle of "restraint." A common front-line fighter divides all proponents of this idea into two types: sullen fanatics willing to destroy everything for the sake of their theories, and hypocritical businessmen who use grandiose phrases for personal gain. The narrator prefers the latter, as they always consider the circumstances and are easier to outwit.

Traveling to the provinces on property matters, the narrator witnesses the old noble estates rapidly falling into disrepair. Enterprising businessmen — German colonists and cunning kulaks — are taking their place. At a roadside inn, he meets the young police captain Kolotov, who boasts of his fight against "ill-intentionedness" and his search for political conspirators. Kolotov introduces him to the retired captain Terpibedov and the defrocked priest Arseny. The two men constantly complain about the decline in morals, accusing the local gentry of excessive freethinking. The conversation quickly reveals the truth. The defensive demagoguery of Terpibedov and Arseny serves as a cover for the machinations of the innkeeper Pantelei Yegorov. This predator shamelessly plunders the surrounding area, relying on the full support of the authorities.

Epistolary confessions

The next part reveals the morals of the bureaucracy and the military through their frank correspondence. Young prosecutor Nikolai Batishchev writes to his mother, Nadezhda, about his brilliant career. He enthusiastically fabricates political cases, accusing innocent young people of founding the "Society for Anticipating Future Harmonies." His mother warmly approves of her son’s zeal, masking her self-serving cynicism with hypocritical religious teachings. However, Nikolai’s superior abruptly drops the case, alarmed by his subordinate’s excessive zeal, who had been searching for hidden agendas in his reading of agricultural journals. Finding himself out of work, Nikolai quickly changes his mind. He resigns and becomes a wealthy lawyer, cynically defending the Skoptsy sectarians for the enormous fees.

Another series of letters illustrates the mores of military circles and high society. The hussar Sergei Prokaznin frankly describes to his mother his attempts to seduce the wife of the regimental commander, Baroness von Speck. His mother, Natalie, an aging coquette yearning for the luxury of Napoleon III’s fallen empire, gives her son detailed advice on the art of seduction, recalling her own affairs with French ministers. Ultimately, the hussar suffers a fiasco: the Baroness skillfully deceives him, preferring the rude Captain Tsybulya. His comrades force Sergei to leave the regiment because of dirty gossip about a merchant’s fur coat he gave him. Natalie, meanwhile, completely abandons morality and flees to Paris, abandoning her husband and stealing his money.

Masters of a new life

The story of Osip Derunov occupies a central place in the chronicle. The narrator recalls him as a small-time innkeeper who amassed a fortune by shortchanging passing peasants and landowners. Twenty years later, Derunov has become a millionaire, a local monopolist, and a true "pillar" of society. He holds the entire region in bondage, buying up grain and land for next to nothing, cynically justifying his plunder as a necessity to "teach fools." He labels peasants who refuse to sell grain at such a ridiculous price as rebels threatening the army’s supplies. Hiding behind ostentatious piety and talk of filial duty, he destroys his own family by forcibly taking the wife of his youngest son, Yakov.

At the same time, the narrator is trying to sell his abandoned estate, Chemezovo. He encounters a whole gang of brokers and swindlers, like the nimble "Hare" Churilin, and relies on his old village elder, Lukyanych. These dealers masterfully deceive buyers and sellers, getting them drunk on punch, and entangling them in debt. The deal falls through because the narrator can’t stand the atmosphere of blatant predation and constant deception that surrounds him.

Soon, Derunov appears in St. Petersburg. From a patriarchal bearded man in a Siberian coat, he transforms into a cheeky dandy in a sable coat. He squanders money, hobnobs with dubious generals, throws grand drinking parties, and vulgarly discusses the merits of French operetta singers with guards officers. Derunov’s old companion, the official Zachatievsky, bitterly reveals to the narrator the true source of the "pillar’s" wealth — an old theft from a deceased passing merchant.

The decline of noble nests

The theme of family breakdown continues in the story of General Utrobin. The old man attempts to rebuild his estate after the abolition of serfdom, but only ends up composing meaningless tracts on nihilism. He confides in his manager, a former market boy named Anton Strelov. Strelov gradually fleeces the general, opens a tavern directly across from the manor house, and cunningly buys up the general’s best meadows. At a difficult moment, Utrobin’s son, Petenka, a typical capital city careerist, comes to visit. Instead of helping, he heaps reproaches on his father for his poverty, secretly takes a large loan from Strelov using the general’s promissory notes, and flees forever. Upon learning of his son’s betrayal, the old man suffers severe paralysis.

This essay on family happiness depicts landowner Marya Volovitinova, who rules her adult children with ruthless authority. She despises her successful sons — the obsequious vice-director Senya and the cold diplomat Mitenka — giving her entire affection to the younger Fedenka, a rude, tyrannical army soldier and carouser. A birthday dinner devolves into a series of mutual insults, exposing the falseness of their family ties. The career-minded sons eagerly await their mother’s death for the sake of the inheritance, while she constantly blackmails them with false wills.

The narrator then visits his cousin Mashenka at the Berezniki estate. In her youth, she was a timid, ethereal girl, fearful of eternity. Now she has become a calculating, stingy landowner, blindly following the bourgeois dictates of her second husband, Filofey Promptov. Filofey is a hypocritical official with a plaster on his cheek, constantly delivering pious speeches while buying up peasant plots for pennies. Mashenka flatly refuses financial support to her son, Koronat, who wants to study medicine, despite her wishes for him to become a lawyer. She disguises her cruelty with sanctimonious arguments about parental authority and respect, condemning her son to hunger and deprivation.

Empty talk and patriotism

In the capital’s salons, the narrator argues with his liberal friends Tebenkov and Pleshivtsev. Tebenkov, a typical rebellious official, cowardly talks about women’s emancipation. He’s willing to tolerate women’s presence in medical courses, but is horrified at the slightest thought of them gaining real independence, preferring to see them as mere gallant diversions.

The friends’ argument turns to love for their homeland, amid a discussion of the speech of the Alsatian deputy Teitch in the German Reichstag, protesting against the annexation. Pleshivtsev and Tebenkov compose official circulars on patriotism. They view this noble feeling as merely a convenient administrative lever for collecting taxes and pacifying the people. The disputants readily justify any violence as state necessity.

Listening to them, the narrator recalls the Crimean War. Before the war, the local governor, Nabryushnikov, was considered a pitiful figure who took bribes like fish. But with the onset of the campaign, he suddenly transformed, began smashing internal enemies and shouting about his zeal to snatch his share of government contracts. During that difficult year, the local official, Udodov, delivered the most resounding speeches about the sanctity of the fatherland and shed tears to folk songs. In reality, he orchestrated a massive embezzlement of government funds for the militia, purchasing boots with cardboard soles. Having lined his pockets with millions, Udodov safely escaped to St. Petersburg.

In the final scene, the narrator returns from abroad. In the train carriage, he listens to the smug chatter of Russian tourists, Spalnikov and Postelnikov. They speak disdainfully of European freedoms, boasting of Russian sauces, sterlet, and the unbridled tyranny that allows idlers to live in peace. The locals rejoice in the freedom to do nothing in their native land. But approaching the Verzhbolovo border station instantly destroys their empty arrogance. The former boasters turn pale, fussily hide their contraband, and await customs inspection with animal fear, submissively bowing before the all-powerful authorities.