| Summary: | The article reposes a number of fundamental problems of the heritage of A. S. Pushkin and N. V. Gogol. The role and significance of Pushkin's pamphlet against S. S. Uvarov “For the Recuperation of Lucullus” in the general context of the poet’s political views are analyzed. The circumstances of the creation and the nature of the subsequent perception of Pushkin's poem are highlighted. The relation between another political work of the poet, an ode to “Liberty”, and the poem of the same name by A. N. Radishchev, is being reinterpreted in a new way. The fundamental, little-studied difference between the two odes is emphasized. The general controversy between Pushkin and Gogol with the views of Radishchev is considered. Distorted ideas about Pushkin’s important views as a theorist and literary historian were also subjected to fundamental revisions. A long-term historical and literary dispute between the poet and his contemporaries about the supposed “insignificance” of Russian literature is analyzed in detail. It is established that, contrary to the popular opinions of the ideologues of the subsequent epoch, Pushkin did not share Westernistic and Decembrist opinions about the “insignificance of Russian literature” at all, but, on the contrary, Pushkin was a defender of the “monarchical” heritage of Russian literature of the 18th century - the heritage that the liberal-minded writers of the new generation declared, due to the odes of Russian writers to the kings, to be nonexistent. Based on numerous testimonies, it is emphasized that Pushkin, Gogol and Uvarov shared the same socio-political and religious-patriotic views. However, being in the same “paradigm”, all three for various reasons did not find a common language for joint activities in the field of education in Russia. As a result, the journal “Sovremennik” founded by Pushkin, that had, in the light of the high authority of the poet, a wide public potential, did not become a publishing of a national scale, so that the implementation of the program of updating Russia on the basis of Orthodoxy, Autocracy, and Nationality in those years received tangible support only from one of the editors of the magazine – Gogol. The fatal role in the discrepancy between Pushkin and Uvarov was played by a pamphlet, “For the Recuperation of Lucullus” that was soon condemnated by the poet himself. For the first time, attention was paid to the influence of the conflict between Pushkin and Uvarov on the fate of Gogol. The latest Gogol articles on Russian poetry in "Selected places from correspondence with friends" are presented in the new light. As it turns out, their content is a direct continuation of Pushkin’s long-standing dispute with his contemporaries-radicals about the important role of Russian literature in the development of Russian statehood.
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