From the life of "the knights of the book". About the correspondence of P.P. Pertsov and B.V. Nikolskij
The article precedes the publication of the unpublished correspondence of P.P. Pertsov and B.V. Nikolsky, lasting from 1896 to 1900 and preserved with small gaps (letters of Pertsov prevail). The set identified in The State Archive of the Russian Federation and the Manuscript department of the Institute of Russian literature is up to 32 letters. The main topics of the epistolary dialogue are connected with the literary, critical and publishing activities of the correspondents; the most significant being the “Pushkin's” plot, in which Vl. Solovyov appeared to be included in absence. Among other important subjects of correspondence is the preparation of the collection “Philosophical Currents of Russian Poetry” and the first critical reviews of it. The evolution of relations between the interlocutors is briefly traced, previously unknown reviews about Nikolsky from Pertsov's letters of the same period to his father and to V.V. Rozanov are given, the reasons that led to the severance of relations are explained. All of these topics are discussed in more detail in the commentary to the letters.