The articles included in this collection were written at different times. Some of them were prepared for publication, and partially published in the period 1918-1921, others - belong to the mid-thirties, and, finally, the third - reflect the scientific research interests of the author in the late forties and early fifties. But, regardless of the time of their writing, all these works are subject to the same guidelines, all of them consider the largest phenomena of literature of the first half of the XIX century. in a lively and effective connection with the contradictions of the socio-political struggle of these years that gave rise to them, all of them are inspired by the search for concrete historical documentation of those ingenious guesses about the specifics of advanced Russian literature of late feudalism, which were outlined in the last articles and letters of Belinsky, and with the greatest clarity and sharpness were formulated in Herzen's book "On the Development of Revolutionary Ideas in Russia": "Literature in a people who have no political freedom, the only tribune from the height of which he can make hear the cry of his indignation and his conscience."