Между литературным сообществом и индивидуальным жизнетворчеством: Пушкин и Вольное общество любителей российской словесности

Abstract

Abstract: The article reviews the history of Pushkin's participation in the activities of the Free Society of Lovers of Russian Literature, one of the most significant literary and social institutions of the 1810s and the first half of the 1820s. The author reconstructs in detail the cases when Pushkin's texts were presented at the meetings of the Free Society in 1819–23 using the materials of the Society's archive, including unpublished documents. She also introduces previously unknown information about the presentation of the Lycée cycle of "Tableaux"—"The Faun and the Shepherdess" ("Favn i Pastushka") in 1820 and identifies which of Pushkin's poems was read at the Free Society's May 1823 public meeting under the title "Farewell" ("Proshchanie"). This newly discovered information allows us to revisit the question of why, despite his participation in the Society, Pushkin was never inducted as a member. The answer offered here proceeds from analysis of both Pushkin's literary strategy 1819–25 and the Free Society's institutional principles: the poet did not fit into the organizational structure of the Free Society, and his literary strategy at the time eschewed legitimization from any literary society, salon or circle.