Dudyshkin, Stefan Semenovich

Born Dec. 25, 1820 (Jan. 6, 1821), in Vitebsk; died Sept. 16 (28), 1866, in Pavlovsk, in present-day Leningrad Oblast. Russian literary critic. Born into a merchant family.

Dudyshkin graduated from the law department of St. Petersburg University in 1841. In 1847 he began to contribute to Otechestvennye Zapiski (The Fatherland Notes), and from 1860 to 1866 he was one of its editors and publishers and head of the criticism section. A liberal critic, Dudyshkin moved from the defense of the theory that creative works should serve ideological ends to the advocacy of the theory of “art for art’s sake.” He wrote articles about A. D. Kantemir, D. I. Fonvizin, M. Iu. Lermontov, N. V. Gogol, L. N. Tolstoi, I. A . Goncharov, and I. S. Turgenev. He was also the editor of the works of Lermontov (the editions of 1860 and 1862).