Unknown Episode at the Beginning of Korney Chukovsky’s Literary Career

Abstract:

The article deals with an unknown episode in the K.I. Chukovsky՚s creative biography, connected with the first stage of his metropolitan career in the field of newspaper literary criticism, which has not yet been reflected in the literary studies. The article analyzes the reasons that made Chukovsky miss this episode in his late autobiographical essay “Signal”. Based on a comparison of memoirs, diary entries and letters, as well as newly found archival materials, there are reconstructed events of the spring of 1905, when a young newspaperman from Odessa attempted to enter the world of St. Petersburg mass journalism. It is shown for the first time that the main mentor of Chukovsky in this period was the book reviewer and literary historian of Marxist orientation E.A. Solovyov (Andreevich) (1866–1905). An analysis of Solovyov’s letters to Chukovsky, as well as Chukovsky’s articles about Solovyov (including an obituary) makes it possible to determine the nature of their relationship and clarify the role of a senior journalist in the career of an aspiring literary critic. Particular attention is paid to the newly found open letter from Solovyov’s widow to the “Teatralnaya Rossiya” magazine, in which an attempt was made to undermine Chukovsky’s literary reputation and question the reliability of his memoirs about the late Solovyov. As a result, there are revealed four possible reasons for not mentioning the episode of the spring of 1905 in the later memoirs of the writer.

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