FROM A COMMENTARY TO EUGENE ONEGIN BY A.S. PUSHKIN: DEDICATION, P.A. PLETNEV AND ‘PUSHKIN CIRCLE’

Abstract

The study of literary relations is always hampered by the lack of direct evidence or their unreliability and the lack of a complete picture of literary life. Thus, it is necessary to reconstruct the historical, literary and biographical contexts by separating the facts that have stood the cross-check from the information that has not been verified. It is even more significant in cases when the specific involvement of writers in ‘invisible’ or at least implicit processes is discussed - it could determine not only some certain features of literary life, but also the images of literary history and ideology of literature. This is exactly how the history of literary relations between A.S. Pushkin and P.A. Pletnev seems to contain something purely non-trivial. Indeed, Pushkin rather unexpectedly dedicated the novel Eugene Onegin to a minor poet and a literary critic of little influence. The fact that it was Pletnev who acted as the trusted publisher of the novel in verse seems important, but not sufficient enough to explain Pushkin’s decision. Th is paper is devoted to other literary contexts of this case: it examines Pletnev as one of the prototypes of Lensky. Moreover, we analyze Pletnev’s review of the collection of poems by E.A. Baratynsky, which contained all the motives of Pushkin’s Dedication and was focused on the image of the history of Russian literature as it was presented in Eugene Onegin.