Yuri Pavlovich Kazakov was a Russian author of short stories, often compared to Anton Chekhov and Ivan Bunin. Born in Moscow, he started out as a jazz musician, but turned to publishing his stories in 1952. He attended the Maxim Gorky Literature Institute, graduating in 1958.

Ivan Alekseyevich Bunin was the first Russian writer awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1933. He was noted for the strict artistry with which he carried on the classical Russian traditions in the writing of prose and poetry. The texture of his poems and stories, sometimes referred to as "Bunin brocade", is considered to be one of the richest in the language.