Mikhailovskoe Pushkin Readings – 2022: “The history of the people belongs to the poet”

This paper discusses the results of the national scientific conference Mikhailovskoe Pushkin Readings (August 21–22, 2022). The conference was dedicated to the 198th anniversary of Pushkin’s arrival in northern exile and the 350th anniversary of the birth of Peter the Great. The speakers paid special attention to interdisciplinary problems: philosophy of culture and literature, Pushkin as a historiographer, pedigree of the poet. Of great interest to the audience was a new project, the “The dictionary of popular expressions” prepared on the basis of the novel “Eugene Onegin”. Presented at the Readings was an analysis of the composition and structure of the Pushkin Library, stored at the Institute of Russian Literature of the Russian Academy of Sciences. New archival documents have been put on public display dealing with the history of how the texts of Pushkin’s critical-publicist prose were prepared for publication in Soviet academic edition. Of great relevance are the ideas discussed at the Readings regarding the development of modern Pushkin studies: Peter the Great and the reflection of his era in culture and literature, Pushkin texts as a lexicographic source, problems of publishing the poet’s works, the reception of his work in contemporary literature.