Abstract: The article is devoted to the relationship between Nikolay Karamzin and Alexander Pushkin during the period of social discussions around the first eight volumes of The History of the Russian State (1818 - 1820).  'Close reading' of Pushkin's texts about the Historiographer, microanalysis of these texts in terms of the historical environment of those times and application of new materials, although the latter were already known disregarding thereto, allow to specify the exact time when the Poet wrote one of his best epigrams about Karamzin: 'His History attains gracefulness and simplicity...' The basis for defining the date of Pushkin's epigram was the author's statement that the same critical oppositions against the concept of 'saving czarist regime' could be expressed both in prose and poetry. Clear logical distinction between those is necessary because their authors, time of creation and environment where they were created were absolutely different. The author focuses on the moment of creation of that epigram because the epigram represented a crucial landmark event in their relationship, in particular, the point where their personal relationship was broken up. In its turn, the length of existence of the epigram and environment where the epigram became popular were the factors that later allowed the partices to reach a compromise as a result of the events when Karamzin defended the Poet during proceedings about the authorship of satirical poems against the government. The Historiographer (along with others) asked for the mercy for Pushkin while remaining politically opposed to Pushkin's views in April of 1820. The 'heart-felt devotion' of Pushkin to Karamzin was restored and later played an important role in Pushkin's creative writing when the Poet wrote about the 'deed of the honest man' and dedicated his Borin Godunov to Karamzin, etc.

Abstract: This article researches the issues of history manifested in creative images. The subject of the analysis is the novel by Alexander Pushkin “The Stationmaster”, which represents a great example in this case. With thin the ever-increasing number of various interpretations of Pushkin’s work on the story of the life of Samson Vyrin, the phenomenon of time is strangely under-studied. The strange fact is that within the existing interpretations there is a predominant factor of abstract time (past-present-future) that calls for transition towards perception of specific time. This is the starting task of the observations and reasoning presented in the article. The article reconstructs precise time of events and the timespan of the story.  The “calendar-overlay” timeline correlates with the biographical data of Pushkin and his (close) acquaintances, and plays the role of a reliable compass in establishing the complicated relation between the image fabric of Pushkin’s novel and the reality that served as the source of the story. In fact, the biographical image of “The Stationmaster” is the relations between Pushkin, Karamzin, and the “young Jacobins” (Decembrists) during 1816-1826/27. The main result of the analysis of this creative work in the mirror of precise time is the discovery of paradoxical impression in the image of the main character of the hero of the story and the persona of N. M. Karamzin, who loved paradoxes. The discovery of an unknown Karamzin in the renowned novel of Pushkin enriches the possibility of a deeper understanding of the historical continuity between them within the development of Russian spiritual culture.