Pavel Annenkov won respect and a measure of fame as a journalistic observer of European culture and politics, as a memoirist and biographer, and as the first professional Pushkinist in Russia. In addition, his reviews of important literary works from the late 1840s to the late 1860s adhered to a fairly consistent set of aesthetic and civic standards and judgmental moderation. Yet, his complex and clumsy style made him no match for the fiery declarations of radical critics--such as Nikolai Gavrilovich Chernyshevsky, Nikolai Aleksandrovich Dobroliubov, and Dmitrii Ivanovich Pisarev--who militantly sought civic usefulness in literature.

Annenkov was born Pavel Vasil'evich Annenkov in Moscow into a prosperous gentry family of the Simbirsk region on 19 June 1813; some sources give 1812 as the year of his birth, but the consensus settles on the year 1813. His father was Vasilii Aleksandrovich Annenkov, his mother Agrapinna Fedorovna Annenkova (née Strekalova). Annenkov was slow...