Nikolai Stankevich (1813–40) and mentored by Vissarion Belinsky. Be-
linsky read Kol’tsov’s poems and made suggestions for revising them
before they were submitted to journals, helped publish and favorably
reviewed Kol’tsov’s first book of poetry, and wrote a long introduction
to the second, posthumous edition. According to one Soviet critic, Be-
linsky, as a Westernizer, saw in Kol’tsov’s work a way to refute the
Slavophiles’ idealization of traditional Russian family life. Other radi-
cal critics such as Dobroliubov and Saltykov-Shchedrin followed Belin-
sky’s lead in praising Kol’tsov, as did Soviet literary critics. Kol’tsov’s
works were reprinted in numerous Soviet scholarly and popular edi-
tions—no fewer than thirty-two between 1921 and 1989.^12
Mil’keev, the second poet, was discovered when he brought some ofhis poems to Zhukovsky, who was visiting Tobol’sk in western Siberia.
Zhukovsky was so impressed by the poems that he took Mil’keev back
to Saint Petersburg. In Moscow a few months later Mil’keev gained the
sponsorship of writers identified with Slavophilism and the journal
Moskvitianin: Stepan Shevyrev (1806–64), who wrote literary criticism
forMoskvitianin,A. S. Khomiakov, Karolina Pavlova, and her husband,
Nikolai Pavlov. But while Belinsky warmly praised Kol’tsov’s poetry in
reviews, he harshly criticized Mil’keev’s. Belinsky may have been af-
fected by his ideological differences with Mil’keev’s Slavophile sponsors
as well as by his dislike of the poetry of Vladimir Benediktov (1807–73),
a strong influence on Mil’keev.^13 No doubt, Belinsky’s canonical position
in Soviet literary scholarship affected Mil’keev’s reputation. During the
Soviet period only a few of Mil’keev’s poems appeared in anthologies,
while criticism about him was confined almost entirely to local Siberian
publications. It might be concluded that Kol’tsov simply wrote better po-
etry than Mil’keev, but such is not necessarily the case. The prerevolu-
tionary scholar Mark Azadovsky points out that Vasilii Zhukovsky,
Karolina Pavlova, and Petr Pletnev (1702–1865, Saint Petersburg Uni-
versity professor and critic) all thought highly of Mil’keev’s poetry and
that surely their judgment must be given as much credence as Belin-
sky’s.^14 More work on Mil’keev—as well as on the other noncanonical
men and on the influence of literary politics on reputation—needs to be
done.
What, if any, conclusions about canonicity may we draw from thisstudy? I suggest that just as a national history can be seen as a story told
about a people, so a literary canon may be seen as a story told about a
literature—a story that keeps changing. However, until now, all stories
about the Golden Age of Russian literature and Russian Romanticism
In Conclusion: Noncanonical Men Poets 173