SOURCE: "The Art of the Anecdote in Pushkin," in Russian Literature Triquarterly, Vol. 10, 1974, pp. 129-48.

In the following essay, Grossman views the centrality of the anecdote to Pushkin's prose and poetry.

Nowadays we look down upon these playthings of older children of an older time; but if there is the imprint of thought and art on the plaything, then it should be preserved in the Museum, just as those most minor trifles and artifacts, which have been excavated from beneath the ruins of Pompei, are preserved.

Prince P. A. Vyazemsky

Literary genres suffer their various fates. Some are doomed to disappear almost without a trace, depositing in our recollection only the abandoned technical term devoid of an ancient, often significant, rich and diverse meaning.

This is the fate of the anecdote. In our time this word has practically disappeared from the terminology of literary study. If in fact...