Russian literary jubilees have always been events of the highest importance — dates significant not merely for students of literature, not alone for the historians of Russian culture, but for Russian culture itself. A sum total of the studies devoted to the fêted writers is cast up, gaps are industriously filled in, wide circles of society are once again, and more persistently, associated with the classical heritage, but most important — the author whose memory is celebrated is reappraised in the light of the present time and this latter is in its turn subjected to judgment in the light of the writer's legacy.