On January 27, a souvenir sheet dedicated to the 200th Birth Anniversary of Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin, a writer and a statesman, was put into postal circulation

Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin (1826–1889) was a Russian writer, one of the most famous satirical writers of the 19th century, a publicist, and a statesman.

Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin was born on January 15 (27) of 1826 in the village of Spas-Ugol of the Kalyazin District of the Tver Province. He received his early education at home. At the age of 10, he went to study at the Moscow Institute for Nobles, where he proved himself one of the best students. In 1838, he was admitted to the Tsarskoye Selo Lyceum. In 1845, he entered the service of the Military Minister's office, where in 1847 he was appointed assistant secretary.

One of his first novels, A Tangled Affair, brought down anger on him of the authorities, and in 1848, he was exiled from the capital to Vyatka (now Kirov) for “freethinking”. There, the writer spent seven years working for the provincial administration. He was forbidden to engage in literary activity, so he did translations, read a lot, and gave lessons to the daughters of the Vyatka vice-governor A. Boltin - he compiled a Brief History of Russia for them. During his years of exile, he got to know provincial life in depth and saw its most gloomy aspects: numerous abuses of power by officials, illiteracy, cruelty and absence of rights of the population, which were reflected in many of the writer's satirical works. It was only in 1855, after the death of Nicholas I, that he managed to leave the Vyatka Province. In 1856, he entered the service of the Ministry of Internal Affairs as a special duties officer. In the same year, he returned to literary activity and began to publish his writings in various St. Petersburg magazines under the pseudonym Nikolai Shchedrin.

In 1858, M. Saltykov-Shchedrin became vice-governor in Ryazan, and two years later in Tver. In 1863, he moved to St. Petersburg and began working on the editorial board of the Sovremennik magazine. A year later, he returned to public service as manager of the treasury chamber, first in Penza, then in Tula and Ryazan. In 1868, M. Saltykov-Shchedrin left the service again and joined the editorial board of the Otechestvennye Zapiski magazine. He worked in this field until the magazine was closed in 1884. In the last years of his life, he had his works published in the Vestnik Evropy magazine.

The postage stamp presents a portrait of writer Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin; the margins of the souvenir sheet provide quotes and illustrations for the author's works: The Idealistic Crucian, The Sapient Minnow, The Rational Rabbit, The Bear in the Province, and The History of a Town.

In addition to the issue of the souvenir sheet, JSC Marka produced First Day Covers and special cancels for Moscow, St. Petersburg, Kirov, Ryazan and Tver.


Design Artist: V. Khablovsky.
Face value: 200 rubles.
Souvenir sheet size: 82×104 mm, stamp size in the souvenir sheet: 35.5×49 mm.
Quantity: 17 thousand souvenir sheets.

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