The Way to the Reader: F. Sologub and His First Books

Abstract

The study looks at the period of F. Sologub's entry into literature, especially the time of the first book editions (“Poems. Book One”, “Heavy dreams”, “Shadows. Stories and poems”). The process of forming the literary reputation of F. Sologub in 1896–1898 was chosen as the subject of consideration. The history of the publication of the first collection of poems as one of the most significant moments of literary biography reflects the orientation towards a particular audience and allows us to assess the vector of perception of creativity which is given to criticism by the writer himself. The revealed archival materials and the bibliographic searches carried out make it possible to more fully evaluate the perception of the first collection of F. Sologub, as well as the participation and role of the writer in distributing books and popularizing his name in the periodicals. Having published the first collection of poems, Sologub sent out copies through Russian editorial offices of magazines and newspapers for review. According to the list of periodicals, it may be assumed that the writer targeted the provincial reader. However, Sologub did not receive the expected response, because he was identified as a representative of the emerging decadent trend, which was attacked in 1895 after the publication of the “Russian Symbolists” collection.