aonidy (New muses),Severnaia lira(Northern lyre), and Galatea.M. A.
Maksimov, professor of botany at Moscow University, published the al’-
manakh Dennitsa(Morning star). Many men poets of this generation ben-
efited as well from the all-male student groups, literary circles, and the
annual literary collections and journals that grew out of them such as
Del’vig’s Severnye tsvety(Northern flowers), Maksimovich’s Dennitsa,
Kiukhel’beker’s Mnemozina(Mnemosyne), and Pushkin’s Sovremennik.
Although women occasionally contributed to such journals—for ex-
ample, Teplova and Gotovtseva both appeared in Severnye tsvety—they
never acted as editors or publishers.^33
These men’s institutions allowed interactions that made it compara-tively easy for young men poets to find mentors and get published. For
example, Vasilii Zhukovsky, “the acknowledged patriarch of the Golden
Age” (Mirsky,History of Russian Literature, 75 ), who met Pushkin in lit-
erary circles, presented him in 1820 with a portrait inscribed “to a vic-
torious pupil from a defeated master,” later editing (with Petr Pletnev)
the first collection of Pushkin’s poetry ( 1825 ). Zhukovsky, who also
arranged with Petr Viazemsky for the first significant publications of
Tiutchev’s and Lermontov’s poetry in Pushkin’s Sovremennik,used his
court influence on behalf of Pushkin, Lermontov, and Baratynsky when
they experienced problems with the authorities. He also tried to help
Khomiakov publish his Slavophile poems abroad when they could not
be published in Russia. Zhukovsky himself—who was the illegitimate
son of a landowner—had been given entrée into Russian literature by
the prose writer and journalist Nikolai Karamzin. Pushkin acted as lit-
erary sponsor for his schoolmate Del’vig, who in turn sponsored his
friend Baratynsky. Pushkin and Baratynsky sponsored Iazykov. Fet
received help from his university friend, the literary critic Apollon
Grigor’ev, who edited Fet’s first poetry collection and then gave it an
enthusiastic review; Fet also received editing help for his other collec-
tions from Ivan Turgenev, the critic Nikolai Strakhov, and the poet and
philosopher Vladimir Solov’ev. Other critics played important roles in
making the critical reputations of men poets. Belinsky helped build the
reputations of Pushkin, the other members of his pleiad, and Lermon-
tov. He also arranged publication for Kol’tsov’s first collection of poetry
( 1835 ) and wrote a long introduction for the second ( 1846 ). Nikolai
Nekrasov renewed Tiutchev’s career in 1850 by reprinting Tiutchev’s
early poetry together with a laudatory essay in Sovremennik.Among the
noncanonical men poets, Apollon Maikov received encouragement to
turn from painting to poetry from his professors at Saint Petersburg Uni-
34 Social Conditions