Textological notes to the “Belinsky Testament”: archival materials from Institute of Russian Literature and Russian State Archive of Literature and Art

The author of the article continues the textological study of D.S. Merezhkovsky’s “Belinsky Testament”. The archival materials from the Manuscript Department of the Institute of Russian Literature (the Pushkin House) (IRLI RAS) and the Russian State Archive of Literature and Art (RGALI) are used as the main sources in this paper. In an effort to fill the existing lacuna in the reconstruction of the history of creating the “Belinsky Testament” text from an oral presentation to the first publications in periodicals, and then to a brochure, the author, following the newspaper version of the text in “Birzhevye vedomosti”, reporting by chroniclers in “Rech” and “Russkiye Vedomosti” draws on to its analysis the program of Merezhkovsky’s 1915 Moscow lecture, preserved in the RGALI, as well as the autograph and typescript of “Belinsky Testament”, which contains several layers of the writer’s revisions. Thus, the present article carries out a textological comparison of the archival materials. It comments and explains the differences found in the course of the comparative analysis (the nature of deletions and corrections: from stylistic to compositional and semantic ones). In conclusion of his textual notes, the author broadens his perspective, supplementing the conversation about typing and autographing the lecture with an indication of Merezhkovsky’s preparatory extracts for the “Belinsky Testament” stored in the Manuscript Department of IRLI RAS, gives their heading and outlines ways for further study in terms of comprehending the writer’s creative laboratory clarification of scientific ideas on the principles of working with sources.