radically. While in 1931, on Leskov's 100th Anniversary, critics wrote of the "scandalous reputation which followed Leskov's literary life from beginning to the end," by 1981 Leskov, according to the critic Lev Anninsky, was regarded as a first rank Russian classic and academic essays on him had found their place in the Moscow University's new course between those on Dostoevsky and Leo Tolstoy. In 1989 Ogonyok re-issued the 12-volume Leskov collection in which At Daggers Drawn appeared for the first time in the USSR. In 1996 the Terra publishing house in Russia started a 30 volume Leskov series, declaring the intention to include every single work or letter by the author, but by 2007 only 10 volumes of it had come out. The Literaturnoye nasledstvo publishers started the Unpublished Leskov series: book one (fiction) came out in 1991, book two (letters and articles) – in 2000; both were incomplete, and the volume six material, which had been banned a century ago and proved to be too tough for the Soviet censors, was again neglected. All 36 volumes of the 1902 Marks Complete Leskov were re-issued in 2002 and Moshkov's On-line Library gathered a significant part of Leskov's legacy, including his most controversial novels and essays. Social and religious stance In retrospect, the majority of Leskov's legacy, documentary in essence, could be seen as part of the 19th century raznochintsy literature which relied upon the 'real life sketch' as a founding genre. But, while Gleb Uspensky, Vasily Sleptsov and Fyodor Reshetnikov were preaching "the urgent need to study the real life of the common people," Leskov was caustic in his scorn: "Never could I understand this popular idea among our publicists of 'studying' the life of the common people, for I felt it would be more natural for a writer to 'live' this kind of life, rather than 'study' it," he remarked. With his thorough knowledge of the Russian provinces, competence in every nuance of the industrial, agricultural and religious spheres, including obscure regional, sectarian or ethnic nuances, Leskov regarded his colleagues on the radical left as cabinet theoreticians, totally rootless in their "studies". Leskov was not indifferent to social injustice, according to Bukhstab. "It was just that he viewed social problems as a strict practitioner for whom only personal experience was worthy of trust while none of the theories based on philosophical doctrines held water. Unlike the Social Democrats, Leskov