Ivan Vejeeghen

Ivan Vejeeghen (Russian: Иван Выжигин, romanized: Ivan Vyzhigin) is an 1829 satirical Russian picaresque novel by Thaddeus Bulgarin.

It is in the form of a memoir of one Ivan Vejeeghen (or Vyzhigin), a peasant orphan growing up in early 19th century Russia.

[1][2] The novel is considered to be the first best-seller in Russia, outselling more literary authors such as Alexander Pushkin.

By 1832 it had been translated into French, Polish, German, Swedish, Italian, Dutch, Spanish, and English (an English version was published London in 1831 and in Philadelphia in 1832), and was one of the first works of Russian literature to be widely read in the West.

[1][2][3] In chapter seven of the novel, Ivan encounters the dishonest rich tavern (korchma) keeper Movsha and his wife Rifka and describes the dishonesty of these persons.