V.A. Zhukovsky in the newspaper Russkiy Invalid (1826–1839): reception of his personality and works

The subject of research is reception of V.A. Zhukovsky’s personality and works in a military newspaper Russkiy Invalid in the late 1820s and 1830s. Through the continuous sampling method, the author selects 110 materials related to Zhukovsky and divides them into 7 groups: 1) biographical materials; 2) works by Zhukovsky and their fragments; 3) announcements and entries about publishing works by Zhukovsky; 4) materials about collections, almanacs, journals containing works by Zhukovsky; 5) works by other authors dedicated to Zhukovsky or related to him; 6) literary and critical materials about works by other authors mentioning Zhukovsky; 7) critical articles on works and translations by Zhukovsky. The author considers all the groups of materials. Due to comparison with materials of the previous period (1813-1825), the article considers the reception dynamically. Compared to the previous period, the total number of materials about Zhukovsky is increasing, which demonstrates growing significance of him as a poet and a public figure. At the same time, the number of critical articles on his works is decreasing: Zhukovsky is seen more as a living classic than as an author subject to criticism. The newspaper of this period contains just 2 critical articles about Zhukovsky; both of them examine the translation of Undine by Friedrich de La Motte-Fouqué (1837) and have complimentary character. The number of biographical materials is rising; most of them reflect Zhukovsky’s teaching activity (in that period, he was teaching the heir of the throne, Tsarevich Alexander Nikolaevich) and his court life. The group 4 remains the most numerous one: 1820s and 1830s are the epoch of journals and almanacs actively publishing works by Zhukovsky. The group 2, on the contrary, has a few materials: the newspaper of this period rarely publishes Zhukovsky’s works and mainly focuses on his patriotic poems, according to its key topics. Reception of Zhukovsky in this period is versatile: the newspaper shows him as a poet, teacher, translator, artist, courtier, he is even tied to music. Although most of materials about him are informative or complimentary, not analytical, such active reception gives a rich material for literary research.