About Pushkinist V. M. Markovich

The recent publication of a volume containing the Pushkin studies authored by Vladimir Markovich Markovich provides an excellent opportunity to reflect on this aspect of his research legacy. The complexity and responsibility of this task is determined by the innovative and programmatic nature of practically every article by Markovich on Pushkin, even though the author himself never claimed to be a "discoverer of new ways". As a Pushkinist, Markovich is most known for his exceptional scholarly intuition and unwavering personal courage. In the early period, these qualities enabled him to independently choose the scientific authorities (the semi-forbidden Y. N. Tynyanov and M. M. Bakhtin); throughout his life, the scholar remained independent of preconceived ideas and concepts of any origin, be it the official literary discourse or intellectual fashion. Without adhering to a specific scientific school, Markovich each time applied those methods and philological techniques that he considered adequate to the object and matter of his research. In this respect, the scholar under discussion can be compared to the protagonist of his studies, Pushkin, whose work did not fit into the patterns of specific literary movements, but due to a wide range of artistic searches intersected with all literary trends of the epoch contemporary to the writer. Confessing full and unconditional trust in the text, possessing a unique sensitivity to Pushkin's laws of meaning formation, Markovich in his philological work is guided by the conviction that the meaning of an artistic statement is boundless, and therefore was far from the somewhat priestly stance of some authoritative Pushkinists. Both in principled scientific polemics and his attitude towards prospective readers, Markovich took the position of dialogical equality with his interlocutor "in the presence" of Pushkin. The researcher's lifelong fidelity to the principle of responsibility for his own words makes such Pushkin studies more than philology: it is high literature.