The name of Innokentii Vasil'evich Omulevsky means little to most Russian readers today. He is remembered, perhaps, only in Siberia, for his poetry. Omulevsky considered poetry to be his main concern: from that genre he earned his living and found consolation during the difficult periods of his life. Nevertheless, in the history of Russian literature Omulevsky figures as the author of a novel about the "new people" of the 1860s and 1870s, Shag za shagom (Step by Step, 1870). The novel caused a sensation at the time and was popular among several generations of educated readers. Until the Soviet period many young people, discontented with the existing social and political system, were inspired by its ideas and program for living. Vladimir Galaktionovich Korolenko, in his study of the generation of the 1870s titled Istoriia moego sovremennika (1922; translated as The History of My Contemporary, 1972), recalled how much people enjoyed reading...