The article presents a consecutive chronological analysis of three program articles by P. V. Annenkov dedicated to A. F. Pisemsky’s works from the perspective of the individual and poetic, topical, but, in the first place, the most important for the critic, genre analysis.
The article contains an overall systematic and comparative analysis of the critical reviews on A. F. Pisemsky’s novel A Thousand Souls in the contemporaneous printed media. The analysis is done from the following points: journal discussion of the type of Pisemsky’s talent, innovations in the image of the main character, and the novel problem range and its relation to the «accusatory literature» of the 1850s.
The article discusses how Pushkin studies emerged in 1851–1855, their Moscow and St. Petersburg schools, P. I. Bartenev and P. V. Annenkov’s work on the materials for A. S. Pushkin’s biography. The article reveals the underpinning of the two Pushkin scholars’ creative ‘competition’ (Bartenev was ahead of Annenkov in publishing his scientific work and making O. S. Pavlischeva’s information about the poet public) in writing an ‘exemplary biography’ of Pushkin.
