“Literary” episodes of the novel by A. F. Pisemsky “Thousands of Souls” and journal biography of the writer

Abstract

This article deals with the problem of A. F. Pisemsky, who was considered as a Russian “eretic”. His art biography is discussed in the article. The objectives of the work are determined by the problem of Pisemsky’s art journalistic biography and Pisemsky’s journalistic evolution. He was choosing between three magazines (“Moskvityanin”, “Sovremennik”, “Otechestvennye zapiski”). This article studies the little studied Pisemsky’s novel “Thousand souls” (1858) about the Russian journalists. His contemporaries recognized the real prototypes of the characters, among them are A. A. Craevsky, M. P. Pogodin, I. I. Panaev. I found A. A. Craevsky, M. P. Pogodin, I. I. Panaev, A. I. Herzen’s polemic pictures. In the subtext of the problem of the relations between illiberal editor and honest critic, Pisemsky derives him from his idol — V. G. Belinsky. The editor Pavel Nicolaevich is a mosaic building. He is a bundle of the negatives: illiberal, miserly, immorality, corruption. Mosaic building excluded direct analogies. Culmination of the literature plot is a controversy of Napoleon III. This polemic explained Pisemsky’s historical views, religious beliefs, attitude to the revolution. Belavin (his possible prototype is Panaev) expresses radical views. The editor Pavel Nicolaevich expresses moderate views like Pisemsky. I found a hidden quote in Belavin’s from Herzen’s public works (“From the other side”, “Letters from „Avenue Marigny“”, “The development of revolution ideas in Russian”). Pisemsky argued atheism and abstrastraction with Herzen. Pisemsky did not find an editor who he would work with. As a result, Pisemsky chose Kraevsky.