The new Collected Works of Grigoryev aim to include everything he had written. No edition of this author has ever reached such a scope. Vol. I includes Grigoryev's poetry, vols. II and III comprise verse drama, both original and translated from French, Greek and English. The present collection was conceived by B.F. Egorov, who would study Grigoryev's life and oeuvre for more than half a century. He worked in cooperation with A.P. Dmitriev, who took over this labour after Egorov's death. This edition continues the scholarly tradition of the Pushkin House.
The Chekhov Herald is a periodical dedicated to the interpretations of Chekhov in world criticism and art. It reviews books about Chekhov and performances of his plays. The journal presents a chronicle of Chekhov conferences and museum events, a bibliography of publications. The Chekhov Herald is published since 1997 under the editorship of V.B. Kataev. In 2021 the 40th issue of the journal was published, and in 2022 Th e Chekhov Herald celebrated its 25th anniversary.
The new book by Alexey Pautkin, professor at Lomonosov Moscow State University, is a collection of papers on various aspects of Russian literary history. Th e book comprises two parts, the fi rst one concerning mediaeval and the second modern literature. The book features diverse research approaches, comparing mediaeval and modern as well as Russian and foreign literature and interweaving criticism with adjacent disciplines, from chronology to art history and cultural studies.
In 1790–1793 Nikolai Strakhov publishes The Satirical Bulletin (1790–1792), A Handbook for Winter Moscow Visitors (1791), The Correspondence of Fashion and The Lamentations of Fashion over the Expulsion of Fashionable and Expensive Goods (1793). The paper shows that The Fashionable Book by the French writer Louis-Antoine Caraccioli, published in Russian translation in 1789, could have been one of their literary sources. All the Strakhov's works mentioned above share a common topic with the book by Caraccioli: fashion. In A Handbook, The Correspondence and The Lamentations of Fashion, as well as in The Fashionable Book, fashion is the only topic, while in the journal The Satirical Bulletin it is central. Perhaps Caraccioli's satire suggests to Strakhov the very idea of a full-length book dealing entirely with the subject of fashion, the idea the writer develops in his A Handbook and The Correspondence. A Handbook shares one more important feature with its probable French inspiration: a specific mode of communication with the readers. Both books are addressed to fops, who are obsessed with fashion, as if aimed at attracting their attention. In both books fops are given advice characterizing the behavior that is usual in high society. While such recommendations constitute a minor part of Caraccioli's satire, they predominate in A Handbook. Obviously, the appeal to fops is, in fact, ironic; the advice given to them should not be taken at face value. In both books fashion is the object of satire. Strakhov's acquaintance with the Russian translation of Caraccioli's book may be supposed for the reason that this translation is printed by N. Novikov, who at the time, i. e. in the second half of the 1780s, collaborates with Strakhov, publishing his translations of foreign literature. The fact that Strakhov's works appear soon after the Russian translation of The Fashionable Book serves as an additional argument in favor of their connection.
18th-century satirical magazines laid the foundations of the essay as a genre in the modern sense of the word. They formed a paradigm of essay in its various forms. The paper presents a typology of essays in satirical magazines. There are considered such magazines as Vsyakaya vsyachina (All Sorts of Things) edited by Catherine II, I to i se (This and That) and Parnasskiy shchepetil'nik (The Parnassian Vendor) by Mikhail Chulkov, Truten' (The Drone), Pustomelya (The Tattler), Zhivopisets (The Painter) and Koshelek (The Purse) by Nikolai Novikov, Rasskazchik zabavnykh basen (The Teller of Amusing Stories) by Aleksandr Ablesimov etc. Essays are divided into three classes: in the first one, reflection and description form the structural basis of the text; the second is organized by narration; the third one combines the features of the first two. The classes are further subdivided into types according to the role of the editor as a fictitious persona being the primary subject of speech in the magazine. The first type of all classes is formed by essays that focus attention on the editor; articles where the editor plays a secondary role fall within the second type. In class I, type 1 is formed by essays characterizing the editor, while those in which other topics prevail fall under type 2. In class II, essays in which the editor takes part in the plot form type 1, while those where they do not fall into type 2. In class III, type 1 is characterized by the editor's hegemony throughout the whole text, while in type 2 the editor's position may change from part to part of the essay. The classification also takes into account such devices as dialogue and frame. Essays involving fantasy elements are specially marked. The editor's persona makes essays in satirical magazines unique among all versions of the genre. It unites all the articles in a single magazine. This gives the magazine integrity, making it a continuum. Thus, essays become part of a complex literary unity.
