The novel "The Death of Ivan Ilyich (1884-1886)" holds a central position in the creation of Tolstoy in the years 1880-1890.
Its theme - the narration of the end of a judge - Tolstoy defines it as "a description of the simple death of a simple man." The main meaning of the work lies in the reflections made by the sick man on his entire past life, as well as his conclusion that "a respectable, cheerful, pleasant life" is worse than the horror of death.
The social institutions, which envelop Ivan Ilyich's life like a spider's web with hypocrisy and falsehood, uproot everything human from within him, constituting the cause of the drama that the sick man lives in his final days. In this solid, specific, and deep placement of the issue, lies the general significance of the novel, which is one of the most important works of world realistic literature...

Critical analysis by the Academy of Sciences of the USSR (1958, excerpt).