About one old “paradox”: the genre of marginalia by A. S. Pushkin based on “Experiments in verse and prose” by K. N. Batyushkov

In the center of the article there are famous Russian literary marginalia: notes made by of A. S. Pushkin in the margins of the poetic volume “Experiments in Verse and Prose” by K. N. Batyushkov and the academic dispute dedicated to them. The author offers a series of arguments to prove that Pushkin’s marks were not polemic, but editorial in nature. They were made in 1818 due to the request of Batyushkov himself and were an attempt of a “younger” poet to accomplish a “critical task” of his predecessor. The margin notes give evidence of a persistent and repeated appeal of Pushkin to the book of Batyushkov. This “frequency” set up the problem of remarks dating: different researchers, making different interpretations of Pushkin’s statements, refer them to the end of 1810s, or 1820s, or the middle of the 1830s. The author proves the need to take into consideration first of all the target of the margin notes and their history: in the light of bilateral “pragmatics” the problem of dating the marks takes a back seat.