Where Is the 13th One from? (Riddles About the Date of A. Blok’s Speech On the Destiny of a Poet)

The article deals with the question of the exact chronology of Alexander Blok’s three famous speeches, “On the Destiny of a Poet,” in February 1921. In the memoirs of contemporaries and in the scientific literature there the dating of these events is still controversial (10, 11, 13, 14, 16, or 26 February), as well as their number (3 or 4). On the basis of comparative analysis of various testimonies (in posthumous collections of Blok’s works, in diaries, letters, memoirs of contemporaries), the article establishes the exact dates of the speech, and identifies three most likely sources that provoked the distortion of facts in further scientific research. According to the hypothesis put forward, they include the diary entry by K.I. Chukovsky, the official report on the Pushkin Days in the journal Vestnik Literatury, and V.F. Khodasevich’s article “To the History of ʽThe Days of Russian Culture’.”