Problems of attribution of A.N. Maikov's articles on exhibitions in the Imperial Academy of Arts. Article One

Presented is the first attempt of attributing an important part of A.N. Maikov's artistic legacy, which is his reviews of the Imperial Academy of Arts annual exhibitions and related publications. Maikov's legacy as a critic still remains practically unknown in the context of present day studies of not only the history of Russian literature, but also the Russian culture of the mid- and second half of the 19th century on the whole, notwithstanding the fact that the complex of the questions raised characterizes the essence of the 1850-70 culture issues representing the basis for social and philosophic-aesthetic searches in the Russian literature, painting, as well as the aesthetics and criticism of that period. The missing of such an important part of the poet's artistic legacy from present day researching is, on the one hand, explained by the anonymity of most publications which results in the problem of defining the articles corpus, and, on the other hand, by the lack of thorough investigations of the poet's life and work which is caused by the limitations of sociological approach to rendering cultural process subjects' and phenomena's activities. What proves the existence of these articles and reviews as a special part of the poet's artistic legacy is, first of all, his private documents. Thus, in the autobiography of 1858, Maikov mentioned posting books and exhibitions reviews in Otechestvennye Zapiski and Sovremennik, though he did not give the exact titles. Besides, there remained complete and partial autograph notes to some articles. The existence of the articles was also mentioned by Maikov's first biographers, M.L. Zlatkovsky and D.D. Yazykov, who, however, did not provide the full list of those either. A focused research of Maikov's archive was undertaken in the 1970s by I.G. Yampolsky who prepared quite a number of valuable publications, thus giving a start to restoring an adequate understanding of the poet's work and personality. Describing the archive, the researcher pointed out a number of manuscripts which were exhibitions reviews and related documents and stressed the importance of studying them. Taking into consideration the period from 1847 to 1853 as stated by Zlatkovsky in his biographical essay and the titles of magazines, we shall attempt to define the corpus of Maikov's articles on exhibitions in the Academy of Arts. Obviously, the first magazine to publish the young critic's reviews was Otechestvennye Zapiski, where, as intended by his elder brother, Maikov started the career of an artistic critic. The fact that Maikov published two signed articles in it in 1852-53 makes it even more probable. From Maikov's autographs found in the archive, his references to the above mentioned articles documentally attributed, intratextual connections with the previous and later publications, one can assert Maikov's authorship of seven exhibition reviews posted in Otechestvennye Zapiski in 1847 and 1849-53.

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