Vissarion Belinsky

Reading notes

• The Correspondent §47 a contemporary of Belinsky's

  Vissarion Belinsky (1811-1848), the towering Russian literary critic of the 1830s-40s whose championing of realism shaped a generation of writers -- Ivan Nikitich's claim to have been his 'contemporary' (and to have needled the rival critic Bulgarin) is a wildly implausible boast for a man clearly still active in 1880.

• To Ya. P. Polonsky, 18 January 1888. Moscow. §8 Belinskys and the Herzens

  Vissarion Belinsky and Alexander Herzen, invoked together as emblems of an earlier generation of editors and critics who mentored and shaped writers rather than merely publishing them for a fee -- the standard Chekhov holds up against the anonymous 'gray blanks and dog collars' now running the thick journals.

• Sh-h-h! §6 a volume of Belinsky with a page turned down

  See the entity note on Vissarion Belinsky. A dog-eared volume of Russia's great critic, left conspicuously visible, is one more stage prop of seriousness on Krasnukhin's desk -- a badge of literary seriousness worn rather than earned.

• In Moscow §33 Belinsky

  Vissarion Belinsky (1811-1848), the towering Russian literary critic of the 1830s-40s; comparing a contemporary nobody to Belinsky is offered as an absurd inflation typical of the narrator's social circle.