The Russian press was strongly advised to ignore the theme and Leskov had to be very careful in defining his position which proved to be ambivalent: while supporting the demands for reforming the Academy (expressed by newspapers Golos and Vedomosti), he was opposing the Sovremennik and Russkoye Slovo leftist authors (whom he tagged 'theoreticians') and promoted the idea of "religious and moral mission" of fine arts.

[1] In his 1881 letter to Alexey Suvorin Leskov regretted what he called one of his "old mistakes", namely "a certain portrait likeness" one of his Islanders novel characters had to a certain real person.

Whom did he mean exactly, scholars weren't sure: some said the prototype for Istomin (bearing in mind his capriciousness, tetchiness and womanizing) could have been Karl Bryullov, others pointed to Sergey Zaryanko (1818–1870), a once promising young painter who's squandered his potential by too much commercial work.

Nikolai Mikhaylovsky in his December 1866 review published in Knizhny Vestnik, gave the novel a mere mention, referring to it as "another spicy novel by Stebnitsky".

In the end the author has a good sense to pity his hero, but still for the reader all this is nothing but comedy, or at least some kind of a fantasy, having nothing to do with the real life.