The paper offers an extended review of the book High and Codependency. Recovered Sobriety and Literature [Kumar dolbyashchiy i sozavisimost. Trezvenie i literatura] (2021) by the modern poet and critic M. Kudimova, pointing out and discussing the most problematic theses found in this collection of critical reviews and essays: in particular, the topics of the ethnic component of Russian literature, literary oblivion, and the patronage of writers by the authorities and critics, etc. Zubareva suggests and successfully proves that the scope of Kudimova’s book goes beyond a philological study. The problems of literary studies overlap with contemporary issues of Russian culture which is predominantly literature-centric. Kudimova is drawn to controversial images and characters — P. Ershov, A. Kryzhanovsky, and V. Vysotsky; analysing her philological and critical essays, Zubareva discovers that the collection follows in the footsteps of the best literary critical and journalistic traditions of the Pushkin era and stimulates the mind as well as emotions, encouraging the reader to view the 19th- and 20th-c. Russian literature as part and parcel of our daily life.