These biographical essays were published about a hundred years ago as a separate book in the series “The Life of Remarkable People”, carried out by F. F. Pavlenkov (1839–1900). Written in the genre of poetic chronicle and historical and cultural research, new for that time, these texts retain informational, energetic and psychological value to this day. Written “for ordinary people”, for the Russian provinces, today they can be recommended not only to bibliophiles, but to the widest readership: both those who are not at all experienced in the history and psychology of great people, and those for whom these subjects are a profession .