Notes from the Underground (1864) marks a turning point in Dostoyevsky's thought. It was written in reaction to Nikolay Chernyshevsky's utopian novel, What Is To Be Done ? Here, Dostoyevsky outlines the moral universe that he will explore in the rest of his writings.

Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment was published in 1866. This crime novel chronicles the moral struggles of an impoverished student, Raskolnikov, who kills his landlady for money. This novel is considered a masterpiece.

Published in installments between 1875 and 1877, Leo Tolstoy's Anna Karenina tells the story of a tragic love affair in late nineteenth-century Russia.

In Russia, a landowner must pay a soul tax on his serfs—though they are dead—until the next census. Such absurdities inspired Nikolay Gogol's 1842 masterpiece, Dead Souls. Gogol's satire about an enterprising young man who is trying to buy social mobility through prospecting on such dead souls gave Russian literature garnered critical and commercial popularity.

Ivan Turgeniev's Fathers and Sons (1862) explores the generation gap. The protagonist is a young intellectual nihilist who believes only in the laws of natural science; much to his chagrin, he falls prey to emotions such as love and unhappiness.