Dead Souls

A retired minor official embarks on a provincial tour buying the registry entries for deceased serfs to use them as collateral, and in the process encounters a parade of eccentric landowners whose foibles expose social corruption and moral emptiness. The story unfolds through episodic visits and satirical portraits that mix grotesque humor with moments of pity, interrogating bureaucracy, property, and the commodification of human lives. Framed as a larger, poem-like narrative, the work pairs vivid character sketches and comedic episodes with reflective digressions and remains unfinished, leaving its moral and social inquiries deliberately unresolved.