Abstract
The article is devoted to a review of autobiographical works and the personal archive of the Russian humorous writer Nikolai Aleksandrovich Leykin. His figure traditionally attracted the attention of literary critics in connection with the work of A. P. Chekhov, whose early stories appeared in the journal Oskolki published by Leykin. At the same time, the humorist’s extensive and interesting autobiographical legacy has hardly been studied and fully published. The article provides an overview of the currently known handwritten and published autobiographical works of N. A. Leykin: memoirs, notes and diaries. A separate issue is the fate of the writer’s personal archive and the characteristics of his materials in the archives of Russia. In the cataclysms of the first half of the 20th century Leykin’s archive was dispersed and divided into three parts. By a lucky coincidence, many documents survived and entered the state archives, but some diaries and handwritten memoirs have not yet been found. The study of the extant volumes of the diaries allows us to speak about their uniqueness. In addition to being important for the scientific community, the diaries will be of interest to a wide range of readers, as they recreate the picture of the life of Russian society on the eve of cardinal changes.
Highlights
Since Leykin was not among the major figures of Russian literature, his brief biography should be outlined
Throughout his life he was first in the Petersburg guild merchant class, later in 1884 was included in the estate of hereditary deserved citizenry — a special privileged stratum of the Russian society for distinguished citizens ranked above merchantry and below nobility2
The main brainchild of the writer was the humorous magazine Oskolki, published by him from 1881 to 1906. In his magazine Leykin publicized more than 270 works of the unfledged author Chekhov [Belotserkovskaya; Chudakov 1968; Shvetsova]
Summary
Since Leykin was not among the major figures of Russian literature, his brief biography should be outlined. Soviet and modern Russian literary criticism traditionally considers Leykin in the context of the literature of the writers of Chekhov’s age, as well as in connection with the formation of the literary style of early Chekhov, but in general giving scanty attention to Leykin’s personality and work [Kataev 1981; Kataev 1982; Chudakov 1986: 102]. With the exception of memoirs about his childhood and early years, most of Leykin’s autobiographical works are scattered, poorly studied, and remain in manuscripts.
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