The Fishermen is a story of life among the peasants of northern Tula, where the broad Oka River flows through a level country to empty into the Volga at Nizhni Novgorod.
This is especially notable when some of the peasants visit the annual market, where episodes of traffic and of drunkenness occur.
[1] All the persons introduced are muzhiks; there is no introduction of “high life.” The plot is as simple as that of a Greek drama, but it touches the deepest springs of human life: honor and treachery, pure unselfish love and ignoble passion, joy and tragedy.
The principal persons are found in the izba of the patriarchal old fisherman, Glyeb Savinitch, whose large family is increased at the beginning of the action by the adoption of a mischievous and surly little boy, Grishka, the son, born out of wedlock, to “Uncle Akim,” a distant relative of Glyeb's wife, Anna Savelyevna, a ne'er-do-well, boastful, idle, lazy and improvident, who comes to Glyeb's home to beg shelter and shortly afterward dies there, painfully and pathetically, leaving his “godson” for his relatives to bring up.
Glyeb and Kondrati are contrasted: the one proud, powerful, moody, violent-tempered (generally just and kindly), full of peasant wisdom often expressed in clever proverbs; the other calm, serene, religious and noble.