The Death of Ivan Ilyich relates the story of a high court judge in nineteenth-century Russia who suffers and dies as a result of a fatal sickness. When Peter Ivanovich, a judge and close friend of Ivan Ilych, revealed that Ivan had died, a group of judges convened in a secret courthouse room. The others in the room, while comforted by the fact that it was Ivan who died and not them, couldn't help but think about the promotions and transfers that would arise from Ivan's death. The Death of Ivan Ilyich is a novella by Leo Tolstoy that was originally published in Russian. The work, written shortly after his religious conversion in the late 1870s, is regarded as one of the late masterpieces of literature.