Earlier, in the spring of 1918, Rozanov proposed this text (under the title “The Scattered Chichikovs”) to Spasovsky for publication in the newspaper he started. The State Duma is the highest representative legislative assembly in pre-revolutionary Russia. Its four convocations worked from 1906 to 1917. Rozanov's attitude towards the Duma, as well as towards everything else, was not constant and unambiguous.