Mordovtsev was born in
Danilovka, Volgograd Oblast,
Russia. Mordovtsev's father was a
Don Cossack and an estate manager. Mordovtsev spent his childhood in
Don Host Oblast, where he learned in school. He graduated from the faculty of history and philology at
St. Petersburg University in 1854. Mordovtsev's literary debut came in the mid-1850s. His first work was the poem
The Cossacks and the Sea (1854, published 1859). His novella
New Russian People (1868) dealt with the
Narodniks and their cause, and with the position of
raznochintsy intellectuals, as did the novel
Signs of the Times (1869), although Mordovtsev did not share the views of the Narodniks. His historical novels were widely read; (
The False Dmitry, 1879;
Tsar Peter and the Regent Sophia, 1885;
The Tsar and the Hetman, 1880;
Lord Novgorod the Great, 1882;
For Whose Sins?, 1890); these novels demonstrated Mordovtsev's democratic leanings. He served for more than thirty years as an official in
Saratov and was the editor of the
Saratov Provincial News. He contributed to several popular journals, including
Russian Word,
Notes of the Fatherland, and
Affairs. Mordovtsev also published many historical works, such as
Impostors and the Freemen of the Lower Reaches (1867),
The Haidamak Uprising (1870),
Political Movements of the Russian People (2 vols, 1871), and
On the Eve of Freedom (1872, published 1889), and his memoirs,
From My Past and Experiences (1902, written in Ukrainian), in which he tells of his meetings with
Taras Shevchenko and
Nikolay Chernyshevsky. His historical works were received favorably in St. Petersburg academic circles, and he was even considered for a position on the faculty of St. Petersburg University. ==References==