Happy Birthday, Ivan Aleskandrovich

Today in 1812, in Simbirsk (now called Ulyanovsk), Ivan Aleksandrovich Goncharov (Иван Александрович Гончаров) was born. He's best known for writing the classic novel Oblomov (Обломов). No other novel has been used to describe the "Russian mentality" or "Russian soul" as frequently as this one, first published in 1859 - by Russians as often as anyone else. You can find it in English here or in Russian here.

ps - the picture is a USSR 4 kopek stamp