Our ideas about how the Russian nobles of the 19th century lived were largely shaped by reading the classics of fiction - from I. S. Turgenev to M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin. K. Pickering Antonova's microhistorical research provides first-hand insight into the daily lives of nobles. Based on unique archival materials, the book recreates the life and worldview of a provincial middle-class family in the second quarter of the 19th century. The focus is on the family of a resident of the Vladimir province, philanthropist and philanthropist Andrei Chikhachev. The documents in his archive are filled with worries about the farm and children, worries about the harvest, health, litigation with neighbors and relations with serfs. Analyzing these materials, the author reveals ideas about power and personality, society and faith, enlightenment and romanticism, describes the Chikhachevs’ social circle and shows how the concepts and key ideas of the era spread and took root in the conditions of the Russian province. In particular, the “male” and “female” gender roles inherent in the ideology of domestic life that was dominant in the 19th century could change places (the father of the family was involved in raising children, the mother managed finances and peasants), and conservative and liberal ideas could peacefully coexist in the consciousness of the landowners of the middle hands. Katherine Pickering Antonova is a specialist in Russian history and a professor at Queens College of the City University of New York (CUNY).