journal criticism

A literary critic Andrei Nemzer was one of the fi rst to draw attention to the work of Alexei Slapovsky, a writer inextricably linked with Saratov. Responses to his works have been published in newspapers and “thick” journals since the early 1990s. The list of the main characters of literature, which Nemzer compiled annually, is not complete without the name of the prose writer, and the mass of reviews is ostentatiously apologetic.

In the article the publications of the literary critic and historian Andrey Nemzer which appeared in the 1980s in the journal Literaturnoye obozreniye (Literary review) are analyzed. The articles of this period dealt more with historical and literary works and to a smaller degree with literary-artistic ones. The aim of this work is to identify the author’s status. A range of arguments is off ered proving that Nemzer’s contributions on the pages of the journal are strictly of literary-critical nature. The key feature is the evaluative statement which is most pronounced in negative comments.