Valerian Maykov
| Valerian Maykov | |
|---|---|
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| Born |
September 9, 1823 Moscow, Russia |
| Died | July 27, 1847 (aged 23) Petergof, Russia |
Valerian Nikolayevich Maykov (Russian: Валериа́н Никола́евич Ма́йков, September 9, 1823, Moscow, Russia — July 27, 1847, v.Novoye) was a Russian writer and literary critic, son of painter Nikolay Maykov, brother of poet Apollon and novelist Vladimir Maykov. Valerian Maykov, once a Petrashevsky Circle associate, was considered by contemporaries as heir to Vissarion Belinsky's position of Russia's leading critic, and later credited for being arguably the first in Russia to introduce scientific approach to the art of literary criticism.
Valerian Maykov, son of painter Nikolay Maykov, was born in Moscow and received a high-quality home education: Ivan Goncharov, the family's friend, taught him Russian language and literature. He studied in the Saint Petersburgh University and later cited professor Viktor Poroshin who taught political economy as a major influence. In his first article, called "Productivity as Related to Wealth Distribution" (1842), he critically analyzed Adam Smith's theory and suggested an idea of workers' receiving shares of the profit. In 1842 Maykov graduated from the university and joined the governmental Department of Agriculture. Soon he quit it due to ill health and spent half a year in Germany, France and Switzerland, where he studied extensively political economy, philosophy and chemistry.
On his return to Saint Petersburgh, Maykov became close to the Petrashevsky circle and took part in compiling the so-called Pocket Dictionary of Foreign Words Now Part of the Russian Language (1845–46) along with N.Kirillov and Mikhail Petrashevsky himself. There he wrote some major articles: "Analysis", "Criticism", "Ideal", "Drama", "Journal". The Kirillov's Dictionary, the most obvious result of French Revolution influence (and an analogue of Voltaire's Philosophy Dictionary), in the late 1840s was banned and put out of circulation. In 1849 Ivan Liprandi who investigated the Petrashevsky case, was saying that the dictionary "was full of such daring things which were worse than those in hand-written copies that were circulating around". In 1845 Maykov became a co-editor of the (The Finnish Herald) magazine, founded by Fyodor Dershau. The first volume of it opened with Maykov's large (unfinished) article "Social Sciences in Russia" in which he formulated the main thesis of his whole literary legacy: the need for science and arts to be organically linked with social reality. The second part of the article was to be a critical analysis of "the progressive thought in Russia," focusing on Vissarion Belinsky, but got banned and later appeared in miscellaneous fragments.
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