Literary Portrait of the Author of “Dushenka” in N. M. Karamzin’s Article “About Bogdanovich and His Works”

Aim. To consider the features of the literary portrait genre in the critical heritage of N. M. Karamzin on the material of his article “About Bogdanovich and his works” (1803).
Methodology. The main method of analyzing this article by Karamzin is biographical, since in it a work of art (in this case, I. F. Bogdanovich’s poem “Dushenka” (1783)) is directly dependent on the inner world of the author, on his individual fate and personality traits.
Results. It is concluded that Karamzin’s article is of a syncretic nature, that is, it combines a literary portrait, an obituary and a critical analysis of Bogdanovich’s poem “Dushenka”. Indeed, the essay (Karamzin’s article can be defined in this way) “About Bogdanovich and his works” speaks about the recently deceased writer, contains biographical information about him and an assessment of his activities, which fully corresponds to the obituary genre. And yet, the main merit of Karamzin in creating a literary portrait of Bogdanovich is a detailed, thorough, professional analysis of his main work – the poem “Dushenka”, with abundant quotations, with accompanying and very valuable comments and explanations. The purpose of these quotations is to clearly show the artistic merits of “Dushenka”, to justify the preference that the author of the article gives to Bogdanovich’s poem in comparison with the story of the French writer Jean de La Fontaine “The Love of Psyche and Cupid” (1669), which served as one of the main sources of “Dushenka”. Karamzin with his article “About Bogdanovich and his works” can undoubtedly be considered the founder of the literary portrait genre in Russian criticism.
Research implications. The paper presents a holistic analysis of Karamzin’s article “About Bogdanovich and his works”, which can be regarded as a kind of continuation of his article “The Pantheon of Russian Authors” (1802), where Karamzin acts not only as a critic, but also as a historian of Russian literature. But unlike the “Pantheon …”, here Karamzin’s attention is focused on the literary portrait of one author – the Russian poet, translator, journalist Ippolit Fedorovich Bogdanovich (1743–1803). It is emphasized that the article “About Bogdanovich and his works” is fully consistent with the aesthetic principles of sentimentalism and the artistic tastes of Karamzin himself as a writer and critic, and is to some extent flagship in his literary and critical activity. The practical significance of the study lies in the fact that its observations and conclusions can be used in the further study of I. F. Bogdanovich’s and N. M. Karamzin’s works in university courses on the history of Russian literature and criticism.

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