Stroganov, M. (2023). Tver and environs after Pushkin: Essays on regional history through Pushkin studies. Tver: SFK-Ofis. (In Russ.)

Abstract

The review discusses M. Stroganov’s new book of essays devoted to the problems of Pushkin studies by Tver-based scholars. The book includes written records about Pushkin’s contemporaries penned by the regional historians V. Mirolyubov and S. Fessalonitsky and treated as original sources, as well as N. Zhuravlyov’s account of the preparations for the centennial anniversary of Pushkin’s death in 1936. It is worth mentioning that the book also features documents invaluable from historical and literary perspectives: namely, family legends in the reminiscences of the Vulf clan: A. Ponafidina, O. Vulf, A. Bolt, and V. Bubnova. In his preamble to their publication, the author specifies the characteristics of family legend as a type of memoir and their genesis. Polemizing with the 20th-c. Pushkin scholars from Tver (G. Khodakov, N. Tsvetkov and others), Stroganov deconstructs the popular mythological notion of Pushkin’s itinerary in the Tver region and corrects the attribution of a whole host of poems allegedly written during Pushkin’s stay in the area.