MEMORIES BY S.V. MAKSIMOV ABOUT A.N. OSTROVSKY: TO THE PREHISTORY OF MEMOIRS

For the first time, the article publishes archival materials related to the creative history of the memoir essays of the writer S.V. Maksimov about A.N. Ostrovsky “Literary Expedition” and “Alexander Nikolaevich Ostrovsky”. The time of the origin of the idea of memories is determined, the circumstances that accompanied the work of Maximov, their close connection with the memories of the founder of the oral story genre I.F. Gorbunov. Genre-forming techniques of Maximov’s everyday writing prose, which bring the writer’s books closer to his memoirs, are revealed. Feedback is also emphasized: in Maximov’s memoirs, pictures of everyday life, the color of the era, descriptions of the environment, folk types and characters predominate. Maksimov’s letters, in particular, to the Moscow collector and founder of the Theater Museum A.A. Bakhrushin. They contain a detailed commentary on the theatrical relics that Maximov sent Bakhrushin to Moscow: little-known details of the history of the Russian theater, the founder of which was Ostrovsky. It is concluded that Maximov’s memoirs about Ostrovsky are presented not only in the textually designed essays “Literary Expedition” and “Alexander Nikolayevich Ostrovsky”, but also in rough sketches, letters, reference and bibliographic notes and in the results of Maximov’s practical activities that contributed to perpetuating the memory of the playwright and popularizing the history of the national theater.