The relevance of the problem of finding moral ways of the improvement of the society by L.N.Tolstoy and M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin

The article considers the ways of searching of the improvement of Russian society in the second half of the nineteenth century by contemporary writers L. Tolstoy and M. Saltykov-Shchedrin. Each of them went through a difficult life path, which led to the understanding of the need to transform social relations. Writers look for the basics in the family but don't find them there. Further, everyone defines the understanding of the problem in his own way - one in non - resistance and self - improvement, the other - in the hope of enlightened transformation. Each of them has its own true, although the path to it is different.