The School of criticism: Collected papers on prose and poetry. (2022). Tula: Leo Tolstoy Museum-Estate ‘Yasnaya Polyana’; The School of criticism: Collected papers on literature and cinema. (2024). Tula: Leo Tolstoy Museum-Estate ‘Yasnaya Polyana.’ (

The review deals with two collections of literary criticism papers published as the proceedings of two workshops held at Leo Tolstoy Museum in Yasnaya Polyana on a regular basis and supported by ASPIR [the Association of Writers’ and Publishers’ Unions of Russia]. The reviewer introduces the new generation of literary critics — graduates of the School — and analyzes their contributions in the context of the collections’ predominant subjects. For both books, that implies a conversation about the literature of the ‘new thirty-year-olds.’ While the review mentions key concepts of contemporary literary process, such as trauma literature, travelogue, non-fiction, the novel of a generation, etc., it evaluates them in their development from a critical, or, rather, analytical perspective. Examined in detail are texts by M. Tukhto, E. Minaeva, E. Fedorchuk, and other critics whose papers resulted from the discussions at the Yasnaya Polyana workshops.