LYCEUM STUDENTS’ LITERARY WORKS IN THE ALMANAC OTDYKH (“LEISURE”)

Abstract

The introductory note to the publication contains the description of a literary almanac Otdykh (“Leisure”), the only known copy of which is now kept in the National Library of Russia (Saint-Petersburg), a brief overview of its contents (all written by pupils of the Imperial Alexander Lyceum) and brief biographical information about the “editor-publisher” who signed as “N. Pushkin”. Its dating (the almanac was composed in the end of the 1886th — the beginning of the 1887th) is based on information found in one of the articles. Having included N. Pushkin in the Predvaritel’nyy spisok russkikh pisateley i uchenykh (“Preliminary List of Russian Writers and Scholars”), Semjon Vengerov supplied the reference dedicated to him with a remark- question: “a descendant of A. S. Pushkin?” A study of the materials stored in the Central State Historical Archive of St. Petersburg leads to a negative answer to this question. The texts in the almanac itself are of varied composition: fiction prose (short stories), lyrical poems, a note on the Lyceum theatre and an editorial Posleslovie (“Afterword”). The latter two texts contain interesting details relating to the everyday history of the Lyceum. The literary texts are imitative, which is common in children’s literature. At the same time, besides poetic (mostly romantic) stamps and “naive narrative”, the works of young authors contain some creative successes, indicating the presence of talent and the desire to develop it.

Keywords: children’s literature, student journals and collections, Lyceum handwritten journals, Lyceum traditions, the Imperial Alexander Lyceum, Nicolaj E. Pushkin, Semjon A. Vengerov