M. MENSHIKOV’S POLEMIC WITH A. VOLYNSKY AND D. MEREZHKOVSKY ABOUT THE RUSSIAN LITERATURE OF THE 19TH CENTURY AND CRITICISM

Abstract

The article is devoted to features of literary criticism of the political writer and the publicist M. Menshikov (1859-1918) in a polemic context about the Russian literature of 19-20 centuries. The author considers Menshikov’s article «Critical decadence» (1893) in which the critic protected from A. Volynsky the critical heritage of V. Belinsky and the Russian democrat critics of 1860s, disagreed with interpretation of Volynsky of A. Chekhov’s «Ward № 6». The author shows that in the article «Slander of adoration» (1899) Menshikov proved an inaccuracy of D. Merezhkovsky’s interpretation of Pushkin’s poem «The poet and crowd» («Common people») (1828) and the poem «Bronze Horseman» (1833). Merezhkovsky considered Pushkin a pagan.