If You Have a Biography, You Need a Destiny

The article reviews the novelties of ballet publications: Olga Fedorchenko St. Petersburg Ballet. The 1850s. Performances and Choreographers (2023) and Alexander Maksov On the Tablets of Terpsichore (2023). Olga Fedorchenko's monograph is dedicated to the French choreographer Jules-Joseph Perrot (1810–1892), his work on the Russian stage appears in a new circumstances, he is among the leading historical names of Russian ballet. The book by Alexander Maksov is based on 44 essays about the artists and choreographers of the Bolshoi Theatre. It results in a wide panorama of the performing arts of the late 20th and the beginning of the 21st century. Both books are considered primarily in terms of the methodology that ensured their nov- elty. To prove his point, the author of the article gives a retrospective of the approaches to the historical genre and the genre of creative portrait that have developed in the Russian literature about ballet. Nowadays researchers are significantly expanding the horizon of knowledge of the subject, attracting new archival materials, but most importantly, rethinking them in a new way. And also by applying their critical experience to the analysis of events and facts of the past and present. In this context, the core issues are set: the professional responsibility of a scholar and a critic, social orientation and creative priorities of their activities.