The Life and Opinions of Nikolai Leskov Told by His Friends, Acquaintances and Detractors

The article examines different memoirs dedicated to N.S. Leskov; the main object of analysis being the receptions of Lekov's personality and the motives for such receptions. It studies some aspects of self-presentation of the writer in his conversations with the memoirists, analyzes the relatively insignificant interest to the person of Leskov as being due to his public reputation. It then goes on to show that the relatively little attention of the memoirists to Leskov was also partly defined by the marginal position he occupied in the literary milieu. Another reason being his "boring" biography with no place for a vivid "story", or a "plot". The statements of the writer, preserved in the memoirs, indicate diverse strategies by which he tried to overcome his marginalized position in the realm of literature.