XVIII век

The paper examines the creative history of the play Psisha by Yuri Belyaev – a theatre critic, fi ction writer and dramatist of the Silver Age. While working on the article cycle A night at “The Opera House” about theatre history of the times of Catherine II, the critic researched historical sources: periodical, fi ction, documents of the second half of the 18th – early 19th centuries. There Belyaev must have found the material for his early fi ctional experience – the historical short story Psisha.

The article studies the diversity of ideas on the role of childhood in human fate in the work On man, his death and immortality (1792-1796) by A. N. Radishchev. The author pays particular attention to the main features of the moral ideal of a human being which, from the point of view of the Enlightenment writer, should be achieved through upbringing. In connection with this set of issues, A. N.