In 1859, the radical literary critic Nikolai Dobroliubov published one of his most influential articles entitled “The Kingdom of Darkness.” Applying the principles of real criticism, Dobroliubov interpreted the dramatic corpus of the well-known playwright, Aleksandr Ostrovskii, as an expression of real Russian life. This was a world of petty tyranny (samodurstvo), particularly in the family, and its primary consequence was the deformation of the human personality. Not only did it produce “an external submissiveness and a dulled, concentrated grief;” it also encouraged “a slave-like cunning, the most vile deception, and treachery without conscience.”