<div> This paper examines poverty as a structural social phenomenon rather than as an aggregate of individual biographies or personal failure. Drawing on nineteenth-century Russian literature and contemporary sociological observation, the study argues that poverty is a stable product of political, institutional, and cultural arrangements. The analysis demonstrates how classical authors such as Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Chekhov, and Gorky depicted poverty as a condition affecting dignity, subjectivity, and social visibility, while contemporary Western societies reproduce analogous mechanisms in new forms, including working poverty and invisible vulnerability. By combining literary testimony, historical analysis, and comparative social observation, the paper shows that technological progress and economic growth do not eliminate poverty when the distribution of opportunities remains structurally unequal. </div> <div> <br> </div>