The secondary nature of literary criticism is indisputable. But sometimes this secondary nature is pushed into the background. Why? Because the personality of the critic is so grandiose and multifaceted that it itself becomes the subject of interest of philologists. This is what happened to the personalities of M. Bakhtin, R. Yakobson, and Yu. Tynyanov. Same fate (thankfully!) Pyotr Mikhailovich Bitsilli also had it. One of the outstanding critics and publicists of the Russian diaspora with an incredibly broad erudition, with fundamental knowledge in the field of history, philosophy, literary studies and linguistics, returned to the context of Russian culture. This return can only be called a miracle: from the almost complete oblivion and silence of his name to the realization of his figure as one of the key figures in Russian culture in the first half of the XX century (See books: P. M. Bicilli. Izbrannye trudy po filologii [Selected Works on Philology], Moscow, 1996; P. M. Bitsilli. The Tragedy of Russian Culture, Moscow, 2000; Doronchenkov A. I. Emigration of the "first wave" on national problems and the fate of Russia, St. Petersburg, 2001, as well as publications in the journal "Russian Speech": 1994. NN 1-2; 1995. N 6).

Of course, this journey is not over yet: there is still a deep understanding of his scientific, epistolary and journalistic heritage as a single whole, which includes the scientist's views on the problems of language and nation, language and state, the role of Russian culture and literature in the world.

The literary and critical legacy of the scientist is extensive: he was the most published author of "Modern Notes", his works constantly appeared in" Numbers"," New City"," Russia and Slavyanism","Latest News". Moreover, he was a versatile critic: modern literature of the Russian diaspora and the mother country, modern European literature and scientific and philological publications, as well as current cultural and educational events that took place in Bulgaria, the country of the scientist's residence. His academic qualifications allowed him to keep within the field of "critical vision" those aspects of literature that philologists were engaged in: textology, functional semantics, etc. Such an open understanding of literature as a single meta-context makes it possible to consider the scholar's studies on the history of Russian literature and the language of literary works as a unique subject.-

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various literary criticism. The line between criticism as an art and criticism as a science (literary criticism) is blurred in such works of P. M. Bicilli. An example of this kind is the article "Notes on Pushkin" published here, published in the periodical "Slavia "(Casopis pro slovanskou filologii. S podporou ministerstva skolstvi a narodni osvety vydavaji O. Hujer a M. Murko. Rocnik XI. Sest 3- 4.1932. Praga. pp. 556-557 and became a continuation of the article " From Notes on Pushkin "(Ibid. R. X, S. 3. 1931. pp. 575-57).

This scientific journal, which was established in 1922 with the support of the Czechoslovak government as part of the general program of assistance to Russian refugees, published linguistic and literary articles, reviews and reviews of Czechoslovak, Polish, and Yugoslav scientists; the works of Russian philologists were presented as studies of emigrants (A. Boehm, E. Lyatsky, P. Bicilli, A. Kiesevett, V. Frantsev, D. Chizhevsky, etc.), and the largest representatives of science in the metropolis, for example, there were published articles by A. Selishchev "Socanye and shokanye in Slavic languages", V. Peretz "To the History of Old Russian Lyrics", Obnorsky "Notes on Russian Dialectology". Issues of this scientific periodical continue today.

The published article by P. M. Bicilli consists of two parts: I. One of the sources of "Eugene Onegin "and P. The symbolism of the"Queen of Spades". By combining the analysis of two different works in one article, the scientist also combined two different approaches to understanding the creativity of the artist of the word. The first part of the work is a tribute to traditional biographical and textual literary studies, identifying intertextual connections in Russian literature, or, as P. M. Bicilli himself called them, "birthmarks". It is also interesting that the subject of the search for the scientist was not only outstanding works and authors, but also phenomena of cultural life, at first glance, insignificant, texts of "literature in case".

Such an attentive attitude to small and insignificant literary facts is not accidental for the researcher. In the late 20s-early 30s of the XX century, the science of the language of fiction (in particular, the Russian formal school) began to clearly realize that the study of minor writers helps to come close to masterpieces in the history of literature. Here is how I. S. Rosenkrantz wrote about it in his review of the book " Questions of Poetics "(Issue XIII. Russian poetry. Collection of articles edited by B. M. Eichenbaum and Yu. N. Tynyanov, Leningrad, Academia, 1929): "Only recently it was accepted as an axiom that the study of major writers is impossible without knowledge of their contemporaries, even if of a third-rate significance. A major writer is like a chalk mountain that is made up of heterogeneous elements, and these elements are very different.

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elements often explain a lot to us in the works of great writers "(Slavia. Prague. R. XI. S. 3-4. pp. 685-686).

The scientific and academic basis of P. M. Bicilli's methodology never allowed him to make hasty conclusions about the "creative continuity" or "ideological unity" of various representatives of Russian literature. In this sense, his criticism was not "pretentious" or" rhetorical " (as defined by M. Chudakova). Nor does he do this in Notes on Pushkin. On the contrary, the fact of literary life (in this case, Pushkin's "borrowing" from I. Muravyov-Apostol) is joyful for the scientist in itself. And it was precisely this approach that did not allow the scientist's factual research to melt into criticism of the "enlightenment" or "edifying" sense.

The second part of "Notes on Pushkin" is a different type of literary studies - stylistic and semantic. P. M. Bicilli carries out in it his favorite idea about words - images that accumulate the main ideas and symbols of a work of fiction. The scientist focused his attention and readers ' attention on such techniques not only in relation to Pushkin's work. The same ideas are found in his works on Dostoevsky, on Gogol, on Saltykov-Shchedrin, on Sirin-Nabokov (see, for example, his work The Revival of Allegory / / Modern Notes. Paris, 1936. N 61. pp. 197-204. Ditto: Russian literature. 1990. N 2. pp. 147-154 and Bitsilli P. M. Tragediya Russkoi kul'tury [The Tragedy of Russian Culture]. Moscow, 2000, pp. 438-450].

Consideration and comparison of similar words-symbols, words-ideas in the works of different writers was one of the components of P. M. Bicilli's theory about the "congeniality" of Russian literature, i.e. about a similar imaginative understanding of the problems of being a word by Russian artists.

Interesting observations of the scientist about the meaning of the symbols of time, window, number three in the "Queen of Spades" the reader will read in the text of the article itself. We will allow ourselves to argue with only two figurative and logical passages of the master. The connection that P. M. Bicilli draws between the words-images lampada, candle and the theme of death and burial seems somewhat strained. The candle in Liza's room was a natural necessity in the eighteenth century: no other source of illumination was known at that time; the lamp in the Countess's room was by no means a mystical attribute, but a familiar one in the home of a Russian person until 1917. It seems that in this case A. S. Pushkin acts as a "meticulous life writer" rather than a symbolist philosopher. But in the example with the folded hands of Hermann, the deceased Countess and Lisa, the researcher did not see one small (sacral and symbolic) detail: only Lisa's hands were folded in a cross. The folded hands of the old woman and Hermann are really a symbol of death, and first of all spiritual death: they both became victims of their passions, the very passions that burn the soul-

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shu without a trace and do not give up hope of finding peace. Lisa's hands are folded in a cross as a symbol of Christian humility and dispassion: she is submissive to God's will and therefore ultimately turns out to be the winner of fate, fate in the mystical sense.

This small detail went unnoticed by P. M. Bicilli due to his own rationalistic predilections: to religion (to Christianity and Orthodoxy in particular), he, apparently, was quite indifferent and perceived it through reason. It is ratio that makes him conclude that for Pushkin there is no objective trait and that in The Queen of Spades everything can be explained in accordance with" simple common sense". Whose common sense?

If it were only so and nothing else, then the "Queen of Spades", we dare to assume, would not have been born. There would be no "Demons" and"Boris Godunov". The whole point is that the devil is real for Pushkin, although it is not identified with horns and a tail: the emanation of evil has many faces.

Our comments do not in any way claim to be an objective understanding and comprehension of Pushkin's symbols. This is only their interpretation, and the primacy of their detection and interpretation belongs, undoubtedly, to Peter Mikhailovich Bicilli.

Small critical and literary studies "Notes on Pushkin" show us the skilful use of various methods of analyzing a literary text: both biographical and textual, and stylistic and semantic. "Critical individuality "(N. A. Bogomolov's term) by P. M. Bicilli appears to us in a more or less holistic form: the" lower "levels of criticism (text organization) bring the researcher to the" higher " levels - those related to the poet's artistic world.

In 1945, P. M. Bitsilli published the work "Pushkin and the Problem of Pure Poetry "(See: Godishnik na Sofiyskiya universitet. Vol. XLI. Ch. II. 1944/45. Sofia. See also: Bitsilli P. M. Tragediya russkoi kul'tury [The Tragedy of Russian Culture]. 2000. pp. 80-144), where he developed his idea of pure poetry as the poetry of a perfect rhythmic-sound form, merged with the content. Such an ideal, "pure" poetry, the scientist considered poetry of small forms: when the perception of the poem is not stretched over time and the reader does not have time to lose the thread of harmony that connects "sounds, feelings and thoughts".

Meanwhile, Pyotr Mikhailovich Bitsilli himself became the creator of pure criticism, concise and imaginative, not tiring of listing characteristic features, but drawing the reader along with him into the circle of images and symbols of a writer or poet. Today we have introduced a brilliant example of this kind of pure criticism of Peter Bicilli to the readers of Russkaya Rech.

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