"Peasants" (1897)

This bracing long story by Anton Chekhov was a sensational controversy on first being published. Even Leo Tolstoy thought it was too much, a "crime against the people." Russian censors disapproved its bleak portrait and the report by one (a V. Sokolov), per Wikipedia, makes as good a case as any for the importance of the story, even though he was arguing for cuts and changes:

In the first part of the April volume of Russkaya Mysl there is a story by A.P. Chekhov called "Peasants" which demands special attention. In it the life of peasants in villages is depicted in exceedingly grim tones. Throughout summer they toil in fields from morning till late at night along with members of their families, and yet are unable to store bread even for half a year. Nearly dying of hunger because of that, almost all of them, nevertheless, are engaged in excessive drinking. For this they are ready to part with everything, even their last piece of clothes... Their helplessness is aggravated by the immense burden of taxes which for peasants' families are unbearable. The real curse for these peasants, or rather their families, is indeed their total ignorance. The majority of the muzhiks, if the author is to be believed, do not believe in God and are deaf to religion. Peasants long for light and knowledge but are unable to find the way to them on their own because very few of them can read or write at all. Most of them are seemingly unaware of the concept of literacy as such.

Thus the results to date, in 1897 (if the author is to be believed!), of the liberation of the Russian serfs in 1861, nearly 40 years on. That makes the story important politically and historically, but it also has the usual high polish of Chekhov, if decidedly in the brutal naturalist style, taking a page from Zola and even upping the ante. Chekhov's observant eye and ear are trained on squalor and degraded living conditions. It feels true because it goes so far so unflinchingly. It's not hard to see why people objected and resisted giving it credence—much the way police brutality is treated in the US nowadays. But, as they say, that doesn't make it any less true, and we know now that Chekhov's story is closer to journalism than fiction. But it is fiction, a good story, and as if to prove the point it comes with a tender and bittersweet resolution. Bittersweet with all emphasis on the bitter. The sweetness lies only in futile hope.

Delphi Complete Works of Anton Chekhov