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There is no unambiguous perspective on Russia’a cultural and political processes of the second half of the 19th century. Their patterns are largely approached through the lens of the key figures that had a determining influence at a relevant period. Yevgeny Feoktistov was a writer, a journalist, a staff member of the magazines Sovremennik and Otechestvennye Zapiski, the editor of Russkaya Rech and Journal of the Ministry of National Enlightenment (1871–1883), later a censor, the privy councillor (since January 1, 1883), the head of the Central Administration for Printing Press for almost 13 years (1883–1896) (Russia’s censor-in-chief), a senator (from May 23, 1896 until his death), and part of Russia’s administrative elite. He came an impressive way of personal growth that brought him from the ranks of active liberals and Otechestvennye Zapiski journalists to the position of Russia’s censor-in-chief, who signed the order to close that same magazine twenty years later. His biography is partly captured in Ivan Goncharov’s novel The Same Old Story. This article investigates the modifications of linguistic peculiarities in Feoktistov’s essays and statements and draws his linguistic portrait, which doesn’t only explain the patterns of his behavior and everyday style but also sheds light on the shady sides of the events that Russia witnessed in the 1860s–1890s and shapes new optics of the elite circles Feoktistov was part of.

The Russian presence of Dickens can generally be reduced to several types: first, he is a “teacher” admired at the national level, the creator of the “Christmas narrative canon”; second, a mythological figure, his texts being the source of parables and anecdotes; finally, his name has turned into a common thing, an object of everyday life, a symbol in the representative list of European writers. Mandelstams' poem “Dombey and son” is a pattern of Russian Dickensian.

The paper is focused around two biographical themes. Theme one is history of demolishing Leningrad school of dramatic theory developed in the State Institute of History of Art (GIII) in the 1920s. In 1931, the GIII was closed by a Sovnarkom resolution and transformed into Len- ingrad division of the State Academy of Art Studies (LOGAIS) established by the same resolu- tion. Theme two is description of the ‘academic traumatism’, traumatic behavior and its bio- graphical effects caused by destruction of a whole scientific trend during the anti-formalism campaign of the early 1930s. Based on archival documents (from the Russian State Archive of Literature and Art), shorthand notes and reports on discussions of the 1930s, we analyze behav- ioral tactics of initiators, participants and victims of the longstanding stigmatization and catalog absolutory, denunciative and repentant narratives. In particular, this paper analyzes the un- published letter to the editors of Rabochiy i Teatr journal written by Alexander Slonimsky, one of the key players in development and obliteration of dramatic theory associated primarily with Alexei Gvozdev’s group and with transformation and dissolution of the leading humanities in- stitutes. The text of the letter appears to be engrained in the complicated mosaic of measures aimed to discredit Meyerhold’s theater practice and Gvozdev as the leader of the scientific school. Deliberate misinterpretation and corruption of self-descriptions along with reconstruc- tion of biographies are some of the most crucial factors that affected reception of cultural pro- jects and their creators in the 1930s and later.