‘It’s actually quite interesting:’ on the origins of a book by Y. Lotman

Y. Lotman’s In the School of Poetic Word: Pushkin, Lermontov, Gogol V shkole poeticheskogo slova: Pushkin, Lermontov, Gogol was published by the Moscow-based ‘Prosveshchenie’ publishers in 1988. By the 1980s, Lotman had already authored several monographs: those featured his research of culture, biographies, and verse, but were missing a dedicated study of the historical-literary process. Lotman first contemplated a book on that subject as early as the second half of the 1960s. In the 1970s–1980s, the scholar enjoyed productive collaboration with the Leningrad branch of ‘Prosveshchenie,’ having three of his books printed there: Analysis of Poetic Text Analiz poeticheskogo teksta (1972), A. S. Pushkin. A Writer’s Biography A. S. Pushkin. Biografiya pisatelya (1981), and A. S. Pushkin’s Novel Eugene Onegin. A Commentary Roman A. S. Pushkina ‘Evgeny Onegin.’ Kommentariy (1983). All three were meant for use in an academic setting. A new such book (with the subtitle ‘a teacher’s book’) was published by ‘Prosveshchenie’ in Moscow in 1988. The article demonstrates that, with the book’s publication, the scholar’s plans for a literary-historical monograph from twenty years before finally came to fruition.