Sheller-Mikhailov

The article emphasizes how the participation in Russkoye Slovo impacted the writer’s creative personality, mindset, spiritual and moral as well as aesthetic notions being formed. The writer was in the center of the literary events of the 1860s and he held responsible posts at the editorial board.

The article considers features of the critical literary approach to the oeuvre of one of the most popular Russian authors of the second half of the XIXth century represented in a forgotten work by a prominent Russian philologist dedicated to the jubilee of the writer.

Ever inclined to teach and preach in literature as well as in life, this famous Russian writer of the 1860-1890s A. K. Sheller-Mikhailov in his fiction and scientific journalism works increasingly focused on the issues of labor and moral education, on the personality formation; he was invariably concerned about crucial problems of pedagogic ethics, about the relationships between school-masters and their charges.

The 1860s turned out to be crucial in forming both Sheller-Mikhailov’s creative identity and his world outlook, his spiritual, moral and aesthetic views, which he had been true to throughout his life journey. Not lengthy in time, but prolific and active participation in Zhenskiy Vestnik holds a specific place in the journal activity of the writer, who rightfully became one of the key and unifying figures in the literary process of the second half of the XIXth century.