 His father's violence and alcoholism brought the family to ruin and forced young Ivan to provide for the household by becoming an innkeeper.After his first publications, he joined a circle of local intelligentsia that included his future biographer (and the editor of his collected works) Mikhail De-Lupé.He taught himself French and German and read widely in world literature, and in 1859 he opened a bookstore and library that became an important center of literary and social life in Voronezh.