Griboyedoff was the first of a series of Russian poets who depicted life in absolutely faithful, but gloomy, colors; and it was quite in keeping with this view, that he did not live to see in print the comedy in which his well-earned fame rested, at the time, and which still keeps it fresh, by performances on the stage at the present day.
There was nothing very cheerful or bright about the social life of the '20's in the nineteenth century to make Russian poets take anything but a gloomy view of matters in general.

Griboyedoff, as an unprejudiced man, endowed with great poetical gifts, and remarkable powers of observation, was able to give a faithful and wonderfully complete picture of high life in Moscow of that day, in his famous comedy "Woe from Wit" ("Gore ot Uma"), and introduce to the stage types which had never, hitherto, appeared in Russian comedy, because no one had looked deep enough into Russian hearts, or been capable of limning, impartially and with fidelity to nature, the emptiness and vanity of the characters and aims which preponderated in Russian society.
He was well born and very well educated.

After serving in the army in 1812, like most patriotic young Russians of the day, he entered the foreign office, in 1817.

There he probably made the acquaintance of Pushkin, but he never became intimate with him, as he belonged to a different literary circle, which included actors and dramatic writers.
His first dramatic efforts were not very promising, though his first comedy, "The Young Married Pair," was acted in St.Petersburg in 1816.
In 1819 he was offered the post of secretary of legation in Persia, which he accepted; and this took him away from the gay and rather wild society existence which he was leading, with bad results in many ways.
In Persia, despite his multifarious occupations, and his necessary study of Oriental languages, Griboyedoff found time to plan his famous comedy in 1821, and in 1822 he wrote it in Georgia, whither he had been transferred.

But he remodeled and rewrote portions of it, and it was finished only in 1823, when he spent a year in Moscow, his native city.
When it was entirely ready for acting, he went to St.Petersburg, but neither his most strenuous efforts, nor his influence in high quarters, sufficed to secure the censor's permission for its performance on stage, or to get the requisite license for printing it.