Publisher Alexander Pushkin. Literary Income of Pushkin

Pushkin's role in the evolution of Russian literary life remains completely incomprehensible, and in the history of the emergence of professional writers in our Motherland, Pushkin's name has hopelessly fallen out. Meanwhile, his role here is colossal. The literary fee—as a salary—was established precisely by Pushkin. By ensuring the material side of literary work, Pushkin provided many of his contemporaries with the physical opportunity to create. Literary work, freeing writers from the tedious necessity of toiling in some bureaucracy, ensured their freedom and independence. How precisely Pushkin the entrepreneur acted, what schemes he constructed, how he negotiated with publishers and booksellers, where he succeeded and where he was groundlessly seduced by the desire for enrichment—this book, which was originally published in a modest edition back in the thirties by the publishing house "Academia," details in full. "Soon after returning from exile, Pushkin hosted a lavish dinner at the Dominica restaurant. The hussar, Count Zavadovsky, who entered, sarcastically remarked in this regard:— However, Alexander Sergeyevich, it is evident that your wallet is heavily stuffed. — But I am richer than you, — the poet retorted, — you sometimes have to get by and wait for money from the village, while I have a steady income from the thirty-six letters of the Russian alphabet."