E. I. Pokusaev

The article discusses the place of Saratov-based plot in Yu. N. Chumakov’s letters addressed to the author of the article. The subject of discussion in the correspondence is the defense of Yu. N. Chumakov’s dissertation at Saratov University in 1970 and its role in his scientifi c biography. The defense of the dissertation with Yu. M. Lotman as the fi rst opponent became the key event of the Saratov plot and its climax.

This publication presents the author’s recollections of the first professional undergraduate training of Saratov University philology students in Leningrad in the winter of 1960, of the meetings with D. S. Likhachev and N. K. Piksanov.

The article contains an overall systematic and comparative analysis of the critical reviews on A. F. Pisemsky’s novel A Thousand Souls in the contemporaneous printed media. The analysis is done from the following points: journal discussion of the type of Pisemsky’s talent, innovations in the image of the main character, and the novel problem range and its relation to the «accusatory literature» of the 1850s.

The article discusses the important episodes of the history of Saratov philological school associated with the names of Yu. N. Chumakov, A. P. Skaftymov, E. I. Pokusaev.