Dmitry Grigorovich is generally regarded as the first writer to have shown the real life of the Russian rural community in its full detail, following the tradition of the Natural School movement to which he in the 1840s belonged. His first two short novels, "The Village" and "Anton Goremyka", are seen as precursors for several important works by Ivan Turgenev, Leo Tolstoy and Nikolai Leskov. As harsh critic of serfdom, he's been linked to the line of Radishchev, Griboyedov and Pushkin.