Many research and popular scientific papers by Professor Valerii Prozorov are devoted to the work of the immortal Russian satirist Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin. Valerii Prozorov discovered a great interest in Shchedrin satire back in his student and postgraduate years at the famous SSU seminar of Professor Evgraf Pokusayev.

Prozorov’s PhD thesis (scientific supervisor – Evgraf Pokusayev) is also dedicated to the peculiarities of the satirist's artistic thinking. Since then, the list of his works has included comments in the authoritative collection of the writer's works, numerous articles on the nature of Shchedrin's laughter, on the poetics of his satirical and journalistic views, biographical articles and essays in famous Russian dictionaries, a series of textbooks and manuals about him for teachers and students, etc. In 2019, Flint Moscow Publishing House published a book compiled by Valerii Prozorov and the regularly reprinted book ‘Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin’s ironic and sarcastic thoughts for different cases’.

On April 26, following the results of the contest, Valerii Prozorov received the Saltykov-Shchedrin Literary Award for his contribution to the study of the life and work of the satirical writer. The award, with the participation of the Russian Union of Writers, was established in the small homeland of the author of Old Years in Poshekhonye and Mr. Golovlevs by the Committee for Culture of Taldom District of Moscow Region.