The title piece of this collection, Parasha, which brought the young author to the attention of the influential critic Vissarion Belinsky and established his reputation, is a humorous narrative poem in the vein of Pushkin’s Eugene Onegin or Lermontov’s Sashka, telling the story of a young woman’s marriage to her dull, unromantic neighbour and the couple’s humdrum and more or less happy life ever after.