On Mikhail Muravyov’s Poem The Painter (Based on Materials of Russian State Library and Institute of Russian Literature)

Abstract

The article is devoted to the textual reconstruction of the poem The Painter by M. N. Muravyov. It was published in “Academic News” in 1779. In the Manuscripts Department of the Russian State Library (Moscow), we have found the earliest manuscript of this work, which we date 1775. This variant differs greatly from the final one – both in terms of volume and style. In the Manuscript Department of the Institute of Russian Literature (St. Petersburg), we found the second version of The Painter, written, as we claim, in 1778. It was stored with Muravyov’s letters to Dmitry Khvostov. Such close attention of the author to this poem could be explained by the fact that he expressed in it some crucial ideas about the nature of creativity and about the principles of interaction with the authorities. From our point of view, The Painter is one of Muravyov’s key texts, in which he acclaimed his loyalty to the cultural policy of Catherine II.