Mikhail Skobelev

Mikhail Dmitrievich Skobelev (1843-1882), celebrated Russian general of the Russo-Turkish War, whose death (in fact some years before the story's action) the narrator uses in "A Dreary Story" (Section 38-40) as a test case: the prosector Pyotr Ignatyevich, hearing of it, can only ask "Which Skobelev is that?" -- the story's first demonstration of his narrow, unworldly naivety.