By training, Prishvin was a specialist in agronomy. His interests, however, were much broader, encompassing ethnography, folklore, linguistics, and ornithology, all of which benefited from his many travels. His first published work was a collection of stories, In the Land of Unfrightened Birds (1907). Its emphasis on nature is characteristic of much of Prishvin's later prose. Prishvin is distinguished by his rich, colorful language. In this, as well as in his injection of ethnographic concerns into literature, he was close to his contemporary Remizov and part of the neorealist strain in early twentieth-century prose.