With the appearance of his second article "O proiskhozhdenii, sushchestvovanii i padenii ital'ianskikh torgovykh poselenii v Tavride" (On the Origin, Existence and the Decline of Italian Trade Settlements on the Northern Black Sea Coast, 1828) followed by controversial articles on "Literaturnye opaseniia za budushchii god" (Literary Apprehensions Over the Past Year, 1828) and "Sonmishche nigilistov" (The Crowd of Nihilists, 1829) in Mikhail Trofimovich Kachenovsky's Vestnik Evropy (The Messenger of Europe) under the pseudonym "Ex-student Nikodin Nadoumko," Nadezhdin began his literary career and attracted immediate attention as a literary critic. In these articles he attacked the works of romantic poets. Although he responded favorably to Aleksandr Pushkin's Boris Godunov (1831) and the historical works of Mikhail Petrovich Pogodin and Mikhail Nikolaevich Zagoskin, for their manifest interest in Russian history, and works by Nikolai Vasil'evich Gogol, such as Vechera na khutore bliz Dikan'ki (Evenings on a Farm Near Dikanka, 1831-1832) and Revizor (The Inspector...