Vasilii Trediakovsky (1703-69) was one of the eighteenth century poets
instrumental in creating a Russian literature based on West European
models, yet a striking discrepancy exists between his obvious importance
and his notoriously bad reputation among his contemporaries and later
generations of Russian writers and critics. In exploring the mechanisms
of the creation and transmission of literary reputation, the author uses
material that is frequently dismissed as irrelevant and unreliable:
rumors, anecdotes, and opinions. This material is used to detect
mythological patterns in accounts of the historical past - in this case
eighteenth-century Russian literature - and to investigate the role of
mythmaking in modern cultural consciousness. This book argues that the
Russian literary figures of the eighteenth century regarded their age as
making a complete break with the past and entering into a totally new
stage of historical development.