V.S. Solovyov's articles on Ya.P. Polonsky in the context of the history of reception of the poet's work in the 1840s–1880s

V.S. Solovyov's works on Ya.P. Polonsky (the article “On lyrical poetry”, the critical essay “The poetry of Ya.P. Polonsky”, the encyclopedic article “Polonsky” and the obituary “Yakov Petrovich Polonsky”) are considered for the first time in a broad literary and critical context. The content of the philosopher's articles is examined through the prism of the history of reception of the poet's lyrics that had developed by 1890. The reviews of V.G. Belinsky, N.A. Nekrasov, A.V. Druzhinin, N.A. Dobrolyubov, M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin, I.S. Turgenev, N.N. Strakhov are compared, and the main characteristics given by criticism to Polonsky in the 1840s and 1880s are revealed (a poet of form, a poet of dreams, a pure lyricist, a literary eclectic, a poet without an ideological direction). Solovyov's articles are analyzed in terms of an implicit dialogue with previous criticism, which allows to specify the philosopher's position in the most important discussions for the history of perception of Polonsky's work: about the correspondence of form to the content of his poetry, about the relationship in his lyrics of reflection and inspiration, about the integrity of his worldview, about the ideological direction of his works, about the characteristic features of his poetry. It is proved that Solovyov, forming his own concept of lyrical creativity, theoretically substantiates the importance of Polonsky for Russian literature and strengthens his role as one of the first lyricists of the post-Pushkin era. It is argued that Solovyov's articles create a holistic creative image of Polonsky as a poet: the aesthetic views, worldview, principles of the author's poetics are characterized; the corpus of program poems in which Polonsky is revealed as a pure lyricist is determined; his place among contemporary poets is outlined.