This article introduces a publication of two previously unknown reviews of a separate edition of Alexander Blok’s essay «The Last Days of the Emperor’s Power» (1921). The reviews were found in the archive of the Dom Literatorov, which is now part of the Department of Manuscripts of the Institute of Russian Literature (Pushkinskii Dom) in St. Petersburg. The article presents biographical information about the reviewers—the historian Andrei N. Shebunin and the writer Petr K. Guber. It reconstructs their social position and political views on the revolutionary events of 1917 and traces their subsequent life in the 1920s and 1930s. The study, which is based on archival materials, fills gaps in our knowledge of the creative and personal biographies of the scholar and the writer. The published reviews are considered in the historical context of the time when they were written and against the background of the posthumous reception of Alexander Blok’s work.
Nataliya Ju. Gryakalova (Wed,) studied this question.