Pyotr Pletnyov

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Pyotr Alexandrovich Pletnev (Russian: Петр Александрович Плетнёв) (August 21 [O.S. August 10] 1792 — January 10, 1866 [O.S. December 29 1865]) was a minor Russian poet and literary critic, who rose to become the dean of the St. Petersburg University (1840-61) and academician of the Petersburg Academy of Sciences (1841).

Pletnyov befriended the poet Alexander Pushkin, who famously dedicated his novel in verse Eugene Onegin to him. After Pushkin's death, Pletnyov edited his literary journal Sovremennik until the latter was sold to Nikolai Nekrasov in 1846. As a critic, he was strongly opposed to Vissarion Belinsky and like-minded journalists who placed "progressive ideas" above the artistic mastership. His non-partisan view of various literary movements helped him to single out and applaud all of the most gifted writers of the day, from Vasily Zhukovsky through Nikolai Gogol to Fyodor Dostoevsky.